What the simulation is
This is an interactive 3D model of the AQA GCSE Physics required practical on thermal insulation. It runs in a web browser and asks the question, “Which material keeps the water hot?”
The pupil works through seven stages. They drag an electric kettle over an empty glass beaker and pour in 150 ml of hot water at about 90 degrees Celsius. They wrap the beaker in an insulating material, fit a lid, lower a thermometer through the lid into the water, read and record the starting temperature, then run a ten minute cooling period during which the temperature is recorded every minute. The simulation ends on a comparison slide that shows how far the water cooled.
There are four wrapping choices: no insulation (the control, bare glass), paper, cotton wool, and bubble wrap. Everything else stays the same for every run, which is how the fair test is enforced. Only the wrapping changes.
The cooling follows Newton’s law of cooling, so the temperature falls exponentially toward room temperature, and each material has its own cooling rate. Over ten minutes the water loses about 48 degrees with no insulation, 38 with paper, 29 with cotton wool, and 21 with bubble wrap. A smaller drop means a better insulator, because it slowed the heat loss. The results from each run are stored, so once a pupil has run more than one material a bar chart builds up and names the best insulator, and the minute by minute table stays on screen for reference.
Accessibility
The whole ClassAdapt Adapt suite is built in: a light, projector safe default theme with a dark option, colour overlays, colour vision filters, a reading ruler, wider spacing, text scaling, high contrast, a classroom mode, a “show heat as arrows” cue, a buttons only mode for pupils who cannot drag, a fast run mode, and reduce or slow motion options.
Suggested class activities
Predict, run, compare (starter to main). Before anyone touches the simulation, ask pupils to rank the four materials from best to worst insulator and to write down a reason. Then run all four and compare the real order against their predictions. The bar chart makes the outcome obvious, and the discussion point is why bubble wrap wins, which leads to trapped air.
Draw the cooling curve. Ask pupils to copy the minute by minute table for one material and plot temperature against time on graph paper or a spreadsheet. Then plot a second material on the same axes. This builds the graph skills the exam wants and shows the exponential shape and the idea that cooling is fastest when the water is hottest.
Fair test hunt. Give pupils the list of variables and ask them to identify the independent variable (the wrapping), the dependent variable (the temperature drop), and the control variables (volume, start temperature, lid, room, time). Ask what would go wrong if you changed the volume between runs. This targets the “required practical” and “planning” marks directly.
Explain the physics in words. After the runs, ask pupils to write one or two sentences explaining, in terms of energy transfer, why a smaller temperature drop means a better insulator. Look for the idea that insulation reduces the rate of energy transfer to the surroundings rather than “keeping heat in.”
Design the next experiment. Extend the practical by asking pupils to design a follow up: how would they test whether two layers of a material insulate better than one, and what would they keep the same. This mirrors the “effect of thickness” half of the AQA practical and pushes higher attaining pupils.
Whole class projector version. Turn on classroom mode and run one material live while the class records the readings together, then hand devices out for pupils to test the remaining materials in pairs. This works well as a lead in to the real practical or as a recovery lesson when equipment or time is short.