Key Idea: When air or water moves to another location, it can change the temperature of the air or water at that location.
Students should know that:
- Air or water can move from place to place.
- When cooler air or water moves to a new location, it mixes with the air or water at that location, making the air or water at that location cooler.
- When warmer air or water moves to a new location, it mixes with the air or water at that location, making the air or water at that location warmer.
Boundaries:
- At this level, students are not expected to use the idea of energy to describe what happens to the temperature of air or water when cooler or warmer air moves from one location to another. The words “transfer” or “convection” are not used in items.
- At this level, students are not expected to know about convection currents. This idea is covered under the intermediate and advanced convection ideas.
- Items do not ask students to calculate how much energy is transferred by convection in a particular situation.
Item ID Number |
Knowledge Being Assessed | Grades 4–5 |
Grades 6–8 |
Grades 9–12 |
Select This Item for My Item Bank |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
49% | 52% |
58% | |||
When warmer river water flows into a lake with cooler water, the lake water will get warmer. | 43% | 48% |
50% | ||
The air at the other end of a room gets warmer when a fan blows warmer air across a room. | 27% | 27% |
26% |
Misconception |
Student Misconception |
Grades 4–5 |
Grades |
Grades |
---|---|---|---|---|
Only very warm air carries thermal energy (AAAS Project 2061, n.d.). | 32% | 48% |
49% | |
Energy will only be transferred by convection if the one fluid is much hotter/colder than the other. | 27% | 30% |
28% | |
18% | 20% |
18% | ||
28% | 17% |
15% | ||
16% | 11% |
14% |
Frequency of selecting a misconception was calculated by dividing the total number of times a misconception was chosen by the number of times it could have been chosen, averaged over the number of students answering the questions within this particular idea.
Code |
Statement |
---|---|
Energy is spontaneously transferred out of hotter regions or objects and into colder ones. |