Class 8 Physics of Air and Water Main Lesson

Amedeo Avogadro was born into a noble family of lawyers in 1776.  As Avogadro grew up, he developed a passion not for the law but for science.  He was fascinated by the invisible forces that governed the behaviour of gases.  He found that all gases, if kept at the same volume, temperature and pressure are made up of the same number of particles.  This was a radical idea at the time and contradicted the common scientific beliefs. But Avogadro was undeterred; he had a conviction that there was a simple elegance to nature’s laws that had yet to be uncovered and spent his whole life advocating for the truth as he saw it.

In the first three weeks of Term Two, the “budding advocates for truth as they see it”, Year 8 students explored some of the ideas governing air and water.  We looked at how gases or more particularly air behaves, exploring the relationships between a gas’ volume, pressure and temperature.  We looked at how air and water are made up of small particles that are always moving as shown by the random movement of some material in air and water (Brownian Motion).  We delved into buoyancy and the forces of flight to understand how heavy boats stay afloat and how heavy planes stay flying.  Finally, we explored and played with the application of fluid physics and made pneumatic and hydraulic machines such as the hydraulic hand (great work Zara and Mia) and the hydraulic gate (well done Tariq, James and others).

So, our budding scientists have begun the journey to understand how liquid and gas particles behave, how they move and how they flow, just like a well-adjusted Class 8 Steiner high school student!

Bill Bennett
Math and Science Teacher