Teaching about heat and temperature

Students encountering thermal physics at introductory level often have difficulty distinguishing between heat and temperature. It has been found with teacher education students at Canterbury Christ Church University College that challenging misconceptions by experiment and through discussion can quickly enable them to acquire the necessary concepts to equip them to develop their understanding of thermal physics. The key concepts are those of thermal equilibrium, the notion of flow of heat energy and the ability to differentiate between heat and temperature. This paper outlines a possible combination of activities to illustrate how this may be accomplished.