Lesson Goals:

Students will learn about Pascal’s law and the practical applications as found in hydraulic and
pneumatic systems.

Lesson Objectives:
Students will demonstrate their understanding of pascal’s law by:
A) Designing a basic, closed pneumatic system that is capable of providing a mechanical
advantage.
B) Calculate how much of an advantage their system is capable of providing.
C) Hypothesize ways that their system could be improved.

Lesson Timing:
Student prompt - 5 Min
"How do you think the breaks on a car work?"
This should hopefully get the students thinking about a system that uses pascal's
principle with which they are already familiar. A car’s brake system will feature in the lecture
portion as well. Briefly discuss the different answers, and touch on the components of the
system, if the students know any.

Glass bottle demo - 3 Min

This is a demo of Pascal’s law. A glass bottle is filled about ¾ full of water and then
struck on the top with a rubber mallet. The pressure is transferred evenly throughout the water,
causing the bottom of the bottle to break out.
My plan is to explain to the students what I'm going to do with an empty bottle and have
the students predict what will happen. Then repeat this process with a bottle filled with water.
The students will then write down any ideas they have for why the bottle filled with water broke,
but the empty bottle didn’t.

Lecture - 10 Min
Introduce Blaise Pascal and his contributions to math and science. Brief explanation of
what pascal's principle is and why it's important to them by using a car's breaks as an example.
Introduce some of the math involved in calculating required forces.

Lift a book challenge - 35 min

The students, working in pairs, are challenged to design a pneumatic system out of
ziploc bags and aquarium tubing that is capable of lifting five books and the least amount of
weight possible.
A successful lift is defined as the weight of the lifted books being completely supported
by the air in the bag (not touching the table at all (the bags tend to be a little wobbly)) and the
weight used to lift them resting completely on the table (no air left in the pressure bag).

Compressibility of gasses – 3 min (if time allows)

Show them how compressible gases are by using a 12g CO2 cartridge and a balloon.
Explain the differences between pneumatics and hydraulics.
Exit ticket and Student Evaluation - 5 min
Have the students revisit the glass bottle demo "After learning about Pascal's principle what
do you think explains why the bottle broke?"

Materials:
glass bottle demo:
glass bottles (beverage style)
Rubber mallet
Bucket to catch broken glass
Gloves for teacher to hold bottle
Safety glasses for each student

Lecture demo:
Ballon
12g CO2 Cartridge
valve to open and release CO2

Lift-a-book challenge:
Each Pair of students will need:
duct tape as needed, to seal leaks (really, 10-15 ft should be more than enough)
a length of aquarium tubing
a pair of scissors
their choice of two Ziploc style bags (Gallon, quart, Sandwich etc).
several books to test their system with
Worksheet

Formative Assessment
Teacher will float between the groups and ask probing questions to discover what the student’s
thought process is. The worksheet should also reveal their thinking.

Summative Assessment
The exit ticket will have the students revisit the glass bottle challenge and they will demonstrate
their current understanding of Pascal’s law.