In this activity, students measure the relative humidity in their classroom and in a sheltered playground location and relate the relative humidity and temperature in the classroom to thermal comfort levels.
By the end of this activity, students should be able to:
- explain the meaning of the terms relative humidity and dewpoint
- describe the evaporative cooling effect that lies behind the wet bulb/dry bulb temperature differences
- relate evaporative cooling present in this setting to the latent heat of vaporisation of water
- give a simple explanation of the role relative humidity and temperature play in establishing satisfactory thermal comfort levels in classrooms.
Download the Word file (see link below) for:
- introduction/background notes
- what you need
- what to do
- student handouts.