Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
#heat #energy #ngscience #conduction
ngscience.com
Make a prediction. Which material conducts heat the best – plastic, metal or wood?
Here’s a quick experiment you can do to find out.
Take three spoons, similar in shape and size. One made of plastic, one metal and one made of wood.
Place each spoon in a bowl and add a small amount of butter to the tip of each spoon. Now stick a small object, like a button to the butter on each spoon.
Carefully pour from hot water into the bowl. Observe what happens.
Heat always moves from hot to cold. In this experiment, thermal energy flows from the hot water into each spoon and then up the spoon toward the butter. Because metal is a good conductor of heat, the butter on the metal spoon melts first and the button drops off. Wood and plastic are poor conductors of heat, or 'heat insulators', so their butter melts later — or sometimes not at all.
#heat #energy #ngscience #conduction
ngscience.com
Make a prediction. Which material conducts heat the best – plastic, metal or wood?
Here’s a quick experiment you can do to find out.
Take three spoons, similar in shape and size. One made of plastic, one metal and one made of wood.
Place each spoon in a bowl and add a small amount of butter to the tip of each spoon. Now stick a small object, like a button to the butter on each spoon.
Carefully pour from hot water into the bowl. Observe what happens.
Heat always moves from hot to cold. In this experiment, thermal energy flows from the hot water into each spoon and then up the spoon toward the butter. Because metal is a good conductor of heat, the butter on the metal spoon melts first and the button drops off. Wood and plastic are poor conductors of heat, or 'heat insulators', so their butter melts later — or sometimes not at all.
