One of the best engagement activities I ever did as a classroom teacher was also one of the simplest.
You have three bowls of water: ice-cold, room temperature, and hot.
First, if put your hand into the ice water for thirty seconds then immediately into the lukewarm, how would you predict it will feel?
Everyone knows that it's going to feel much warmer.
Now repeat starting with the hot water. What's your prediction?
That's easy.
Here's the charm: predict what will happen if you simultaneously start with one hand in the cold and the other in the hot?
After everyone makes their prediction, let them try it.
It's a bizarre feeling that we're totally not expecting.
The physiology lesson is that (a) hot and cold are actually relative, not absolute, sensations and (b) we don't actually experience hot and cold (or any other sensation) in our skin or other senses. We experience them in our brains.
Question for the table: does this mean that if you're feeling too warm or cold you just need to change your mind? What about other feelings?
Shabbat Shalom
PS - What's the technical name for the bodily system of the skin? [integumentary]
PPS - Do you know how many days until Purim and Pesach?
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