Students investigate the essential question, “How can containers keep stuff from warming up or cooling down?” They test why liquids change temperature differently across cup systems, then use particle models and evidence about evaporation, light absorption, and collisions to explain energy transfer in closed systems. Teams apply their findings through two cycles of designing, testing, and revising an insulated cup, using shared data and peer feedback to justify each feature. Students then transfer their models to chemical heating and cooling devices, stored potential energy, ecosystem energy and matter cycles, and the solar- and gravity-driven water cycle, sharing evidence-based explanations with an authentic audience.

Students will investigate why liquids warm or cool at different rates by measuring temperature and mass, controlling variables, analyzing class data, and relating temperature change to particle motion and energy transfer. They will develop and revise system models showing evaporation, light absorption, particle collisions, changes of state, stored potential energy, and how solar energy and gravity drive water cycling and support matter and energy transfer in ecosystems. Teams will apply evidence to design, construct, test, and improve cup systems that use lids, reflective materials, and air insulation to slow thermal energy transfer, while also testing a safe device that absorbs or releases thermal energy through a chemical process. Students will share evidence-based design decisions, give and use peer feedback, reflect on their progress, and explain how their models apply to everyday containers and other thermal-energy devices.

Students will build a journal and progress portfolio containing Driving Question Board entries, controlled investigation plans, pooled data charts, and revised particle-and-system models explaining evaporation, light absorption, collisions, temperature, mass, and state changes. They will also create models connecting energy to stored potential energy, a safe chemical heating or cooling device, the water cycle, and matter and energy transfer in ecosystems. Teams will produce two cup prototypes, peer feedback, test results, and a final design packet explaining how lids, reflective materials, and air insulation slow thermal energy transfer. At a Cold Cup Expo, students will demonstrate their designs and present an individual disaster-blanket analysis showing how their learning applies beyond cups.

Teams test everyday containers—thermoses, reusable bottles, lunch bags, and coolers—with equal amounts of cold water, recording starting and ending temperatures while using goggles and never tasting lab materials. Students compare results, sketch an initial model of why some liquids change temperature more than others, and share observations in a Scientists Circle. Build a Driving Question Board around how containers prevent warming or cooling, how temperature changes in a closed system, and how a cup could slow energy transfer. Close by challenging teams to design, test, and improve a cup that performs as well as a store-bought container.

Host a Cold Cup Expo for families, younger students, and community partners, where visitors help teams safely test redesigned cups with teacher-prepared water and compare temperature data. Each team displays Design 1 and Design 2, particle models, test results, and evidence explaining how lids, reflective surfaces, and air insulation reduce evaporation, light absorption, or particle collisions. Students rotate through roles as greeter, test facilitator, data interpreter, and model explainer, using visuals or sentence frames to ensure meaningful participation. Conclude with a class Ultimate Cold Cup presentation that answers how containers prevent warming or cooling and traces learning from cup-feature tests, to energy transfer in closed systems, to evidence-based redesign.