Pass It or Block It
Conductors and insulators of heat
What this lesson covers
Why it matters
Leave a steel spoon and a wooden spoon in the same hot dal. Five minutes later one handle bites you and one doesn't. The dal treated them equally — the spoons didn't cooperate equally.
Predict first
The steel spoon's handle gets hot because steel…
Metals pass heat along, particle to particle, fast. Wood, plastic and wool barely pass it at all — that's why they make the HANDLES.
- conducts heat well — the heat travels up the handle — correct
- absorbs the dal
- is thinner than wood
What you do
Sort the kitchen: which materials pass heat, which block it?
Check yourself
Cooking pans are metal with plastic handles because…
One object, both families: conductor where you want heat, insulator where you don't.
Woollen clothes keep you warm because wool…
The sweater doesn't heat you — it stops YOUR heat leaving. Trapped air does the blocking.
The best conductor here is…
Copper-bottomed pans exist for a reason — metals lead the conduction league.
- metal conducts heat to the food; plastic blocks it from your hand — correct
- plastic is cheaper
- metal looks shiny
- traps air, an excellent insulator, holding your body heat in — correct
- produces heat
- attracts sunlight
- copper — correct
- glass
- rubber