My kids are the age where they ask why questions. The other morning, my six-year-old daughter asked what ice is. In her defense, we live in California, where ice is what comes out of the freezer. I sensed that she was confused how it relates to water, so I explained about how ice, water and steam are the same thing.
To me, the most important thing when talking about physics with kids isn’t to teach them the vocabulary. Explaining physics can quickly get complicated and talking to my daughter I heard myself saying “phase transition”.
Often, it’s not even about teaching the underlying mechanism. It’s more about getting an intuitive sense for how the world is and how we can manipulate it. It’s more about engineering less about science. This starts with recognizing the same phenomenon, happening in different contexts:
- Condensation on cold windows: Recognize that this is the same than on a can of soda, taken out of the fridge and getting moise on the outside
- Lift on a sail or airplane wing: Hold a spoon under the running tap and feel how it’s being sucked toward the convex side
- Related: Hold two pieces of paper vertically, two inches or so apart, and blow between them. They’re going to stick together because the fast-moving air has less pressure
Nehaveigur 