Episode 600: Preparation for Kinetic Theory Topic

This topic, from the Institute of Physics, encourage students to learn more about how the microscopic behaviour of particles gives rise to the macroscopic behaviour of materials. They can also see how this gives rise to a mathematical model for an ideal gas.

The learning episodes in this topic include:

Episode 601: Brownian motion and ideal gases

Episode 602: Ideal gases and absolute zero

Episode 603: Kinetic model of an ideal gas

Each learning episode is a defined set of activities that take typically one or two lessons. The topic gives students the opportunities to:

1. appreciate some of the experimental evidence for atoms and their motion

2. know how to apply the gas laws

3. understand the thermodynamic temperature scale

4. know what an ideal gas is, understand how its properties link to the gas laws and the absolute temperature scale, and be able to link absolute temperature with average KE per molecule

5. know that the energy in a gas is not uniformly distributed among its particles and be able to make calculations using the Boltzmann constant.