A hands-on STEM companion to the Rescue Run breakout. Turn the thermal-equilibrium idea from Lock 4 into a real test — design an insulated container, then graph how it cools and read the slope like the drone's motion graph.
🎯 The problem (define)
The rescue team's medicine must stay cold in the desert sun. Using common materials, design an insulated container that keeps an ice cube frozen the longest (or keeps cold water coldest over 15 minutes). Then redesign to beat your own record.
Anchor question: Heat always flows from hot to cold toward thermal equilibrium. Your insulation can't stop that — so which design slows it best, and how does your temperature-vs-time graph show it?
🧰 Materials (per team of 2–4)
A small cup or container as the "core," plus a larger outer container
Insulators to test: cotton balls, foil, bubble wrap, paper towels, felt, foam
Ice cubes of equal size (or equal amounts of cold water) as the "medicine"
A thermometer (or temperature probe), a timer, tape, this recording sheet
🔁 The engineering design process
Define the problem: keep the cold cargo cold the longest.
Imagine & brainstorm: which materials trap the least heat flow? Predict a ranking.
Plan: choose your insulation layers and sketch the build.
Create: build the cooler around the core; seal gaps that let convection in.
Test: record the temperature every 2–3 minutes for ~15 minutes. Keep every team's start temperature and ice size the same (a fair test).
Improve: change one variable (add a layer, seal a gap, add a reflective wrap) and retest so you know what helped.
📊 Record & graph your data
Time (min)
0
3
6
9
12
15
Round 1 temp (°C)
Round 2 temp (°C)
↑ Temperature (°C)
Time (min) →
Plot both rounds. A flatter, gentler slope means heat is flowing in more slowly — the better insulator. This is the same slope reading you used on the drone's distance–time graph. 7.2(B) analyze data & patterns · 7.7(C) graph reasoning.
🗣️ Explain it — Claim, Evidence, Reasoning (CER)
Claim — Which design kept the cargo cold the longest?
Evidence — Compare the slopes of your two graphs.
Reasoning — Use heat flows hot→cold, conduction/convection/radiation, and thermal equilibrium to explain why. (Insulation only slows the heat; given enough time, inside and outside still reach the same temperature.)
🌡️ STEM career highlight — Thermal / Mechanical Engineer & Emergency-Management Logistics. These professionals design coolers for vaccines, spacecraft heat shields, and building insulation — and plan how rescue supplies stay usable in the field. They use exactly what you tested: slow the heat flow toward equilibrium. (Labor data: O*NET & the Texas Workforce Commission; 7.4(C) investigate STEM careers.)
🧩 Extend it: Add a "sun" (a lamp) to introduce radiation and test a reflective foil layer — then connect back to Lock 2: two coolers can lose the same total heat but along very different paths, just like two drones with the same speed but different velocity.
TEKS aligned to this challenge
7.8(A) conduction/convection/radiation · 7.8(B) heat flows warm→cool to equilibrium · 7.1(B) design solutions · 7.1(G) develop & use models · 7.2(B) analyze data · 7.2(D) evaluate designs · 7.7(C) graph interpretation · 7.4(C) STEM careers. Cross-curricular: Math (graphing, slope, means), ELAR (CER writing). Aligned to, not reproduced from, the official TEKS — confirm before adoption.