The Development of Handmade Digital Thermometers

Abstract

Students are surrounded by many kinds of digital devices in their daily lives. However, students usually do not know their mechanisms; to most, they remain mysterious "black boxes". In order to understand the mechanism of digital devices, we developed a digital thermometer. A digital thermometer is built with a sensor, a digital voltmeter, telephone cable and a battery. We can draw a reliable calibration curve between temperature and voltage with this digital device. Students can use the digital thermometers they construct to measure their body temperatures, as well as to gather other data for comparison experiments. Not only can the children deepen their understanding of the mechanisms of digital devices, but they can also realize the utility of science and mathematics. Moreover, the cost of the materials for the thermometer is inexpensive. We propose some lesson plans utilizing this teaching material. We expect that many teachers will use this digital thermometer in their lessons.