Physics of Survival: Embodying Thermodynamics Through Experience

Jim Panzer

Physics of Survival Sleep Out Video Project

🔁This content is yours to use. Download it, remix it, adapt it, share it—make it work for your community. 
After reading the lesson plan, please refer to the bottom of the lesson plan for self-reflection questions to assist with your next steps!

In addition, this resource is full of complimentary files/reading resources. These will be below the reflection questions at the bottom of this resource.

KNOW

Heat moves in four ways: conduction, convection, radiation, and evaporation. This is for an introductory physics course—the math is not the emphasis, though R-value and U-factor are introduced, and students can work with these concepts. The deeper goal is a physical understanding, meaning students should feel these concepts, not just define them. 

This knowledge is not exclusively Western or academic. A core aim of this project is to recognize that cultures across the world have long developed sophisticated understandings of environmental conditions in the context of survival. For thousands of years, humans have refined ways of engaging with cold, heat, and shelter. Indigenous communities, in particular, built complex and effective relationships with these factors long before modern physics named or formalized them.

Key concepts students will understand:

• Conduction transfers heat through direct contact (the ground drawing warmth from your body)
• Convection moves heat through air or fluid (wind chill, rising warm air)
• Radiation transfers heat without a medium (why clear nights are cooler than cloudy ones)
• Evaporation carries heat away through moisture (why staying dry matters for survival)
• R-value and U-factor quantify how materials resist conduction
• Other cultures’ traditional practices embody deep thermodynamic knowledge

DO

This project unfolds over several weeks and builds toward an experimental outcome. All files labeled “E&E Survival Resource” should be read by the teacher first, then distributed to students.

In Class (leading up to project):

1. Participate in multiple days of discussion, note-taking, and quizzes on thermodynamics concepts

2. Complete homework assignments with open-ended questions

3. Read and engage with a variety of articles and resources on thermodynamics and how other cultures relate to the natural world—assigned individually, in groups, or split among the class at the teacher’s discretion

The Overnight Project:

With permission from the teacher, the school district, and a legal guardian, spend one night outdoors without any external source of warmth

Ideally, it should be done when the weather is “most unpleasant,” or in a cold/dry environment like New York State in winter, or adapted for hot/humid environments

Come armed with nothing more than cultural and physics awareness

The Video Documentary:

Create a video documentary of the overnight experience

Specifically detail how other cultures made themselves at one with nature, connecting those practices to the thermodynamics concepts learned in class

If the overnight project is not possible (no permission, safety concern, or medical condition):

Option A: Build a mini shelter or insulation system. Include

1. The use of thermometers / probes / data loggers

2. Test heat loss over time (e.g., warm water bottle, heating pad)

3. Analyze data using thermodynamics vocabulary

Option B: Heat up a portion of discarded food. Do not use food that is still edible (for ethical concerns) and put it outside, Design a system that keeps it warm, and track its temperature overtime. You will need to go outside briefly and take the temperature of the food several times to get the data.

Construct a graph of its temperature as time goes on until it reaches the outside temperature (if ever it does…) Make a vlog of the experience using the same parameters as others who are physically spending the night outdoors.

Note for teachers:

* The teacher should do this project themselves. You are asking students to step out of their comfort zone and to go beyond a pencil-and-paper text, so you should too. The teacher’s own video (uploaded separately) is intended only for other teachers—not as a student exemplar. It is not meant to demonstrate physics so much as to model one way considerations for equity can be incorporated into the project. 

BE

Be a physicist who understands physics as something embodied, not just abstract or written. It is rare for a high school assignment to ask students to step this far outside of their comfort zone. By stepping outside—literally—you practice being:

Someone with a physical, embodied understanding of conduction, convection, radiation, and evaporation. These concepts are felt in real time.

• A student and teacher humble enough to recognize that non-Western cultures mastered thermodynamics through lived relationships with the natural world
• A person with their own story to tell—a real experience that connects abstract science to life
• - Someone whose science education makes them more connected to the natural world and to other people, not less
• An individual with heightened awareness of what it means to lack reliable shelter or warmth, and why that matters beyond the classroom

ADAPTING THIS WORK ACROSS DISCIPLINES

This project is rooted in thermodynamics, but its core—embodied learning, cultural knowledge, and real-world experiences—extends beyond physics. Consider how you might take even a portion of this work in your own field:

1) Staring Small

• What is one concept in your discipline that students typically only encounter abstractly? How could it be felt, observed, or experienced instead? 
• If a full overnight experience is not possible, what is a shorter or more accessible version (e.g., 30 minutes outdoors, a structured observation, or a sensory exercise) that could achieve a similar goal?
• What would it look like to replace one traditional assignment with an experience-based one?***Here is additional preparation for starting small:Cold Reality Check (B-Roll, Prediction, Safety)You are going to sleep outside this winter with no external heat source. Before that happens,lets use today. It is cold outside. Cold enough that if you were “caught” outside wearing only what you have on in this classroom, how would it go?Today is about observing, documenting, and predicting. The cold, sun, snow, and wind todayare your physics lab.The goals of today are:
  1. Capture B-roll footage you can use in your final sleep-out video.
  2. Start thinking seriously about heat transfer and preparation.
  3. Honestly assess how well (or badly) you’d do if you had to sleep outside tonight wearing what you’re wearing now and fueled by what you ate today.
• Go outside and get the footage (15-20 minutes), then come back in and edit it together and submit. Work alone or in groups. Stay on school grounds, but not in the parking lots.You need a mix of artistic shots and physics-relevant shots.Part A: Suggested short clips ideas (5–10 seconds each):Artistic / Atmospheric Elements:

• Sunlight on snow (sparkle, glare, long shadows)
• Your breath condensing in the cold
• Wind moving snow, trees, flags, or clothing
• Footsteps compressing snow
• A wide establishing shot of the outdoor space
• Physics-Focused Elements
• Snow on different surfaces (metal railing, wood bench, ground)
• Bare hand vs gloved hand near snow (no touching metal with bare skin)
• Wind hitting your jacket / loose clothing
• Sun hitting dark vs light surfaces
• Any melting, dripping, or lack of melting you notice

Part B: On-Camera Reflection

Record one short talking clip per person (30–60 seconds each). Answer these out loud on video:

1. Weather Snapshot:

• What is the temperature?
• Is it windy or calm, and from what direction are the winds coming from, and what might the direction indicate for the upcoming weather?
• Is it sunny or cloudy?
• Is there dry or slushy snow, or no snow on the ground?

2. Clothing Reality Check:

• What are you wearing right now?
• What parts of your body feel warm? What feels cold first?
• Where do you think you’re losing the most heat?

3. Food & Fuel Check

• What did you eat and drink so far today?
• Would this help or hurt you (or unknown) if you slept outside tonight? Why?

4. Prediction:

• If you had to sleep outside tonight with no fire, no extra gear, just with what you wore to school today, how do you think it would go?

Safety Notes

1. Stay in sight of the building.

2. No sitting or lying directly on snow.

3. No bare skin on metal.

4. If you feel numbness or pain: go inside immediately.

5. Don’t go to your car or in the parking lots/construction zones, etc.

6. The teacher should already clear this small activity with school administration and have gone over clear guidelines for what the kids should do in the event a non-class related emergency or drill happens while outside.

2) Embodied Learning in Your Discipline

• Where does your subject already live in students’ bodies, environments, or daily decisions, even if it is not taught that way?
• How might students experience a key idea rather than only analyze or describe it?
• What would count as “evidence of understanding” if students learned through experience rather than text or lecture?

3) Connecting to Cultural Knowledge

• What forms of knowledge in your field exist outside Western or academic traditions? How can you present or integrate these as equally valid ways of knowing?
• How can students translate a personal experience into disciplinary language, concepts, or frameworks? 

4) Extending the Core Idea

• This project asks students to step outside, notice their environment, and rethink what counts as knowledge. What would it mean for your students to leave your class more aware of the world around them and their place within it? 

SELF-REFLECTION: INVITATION FOR EDUCATORS

1) Experiential Learning

• What would it mean for you to do this project yourself before assigning it to students? What is stopping you, and is that the same thing that might stop your students? 
• Think about the last time you were physically uncomfortable outdoors. What did you learn from that experience that you could not have learned any other way? How often do you create conditions for that kind of learning in your classroom?

2) Embodied Physics Understanding

• When have you felt conduction, convection, radiation, or evaporation in your daily life without labeling it as physics?
• Which mode of heat transfer do students tend to misunderstand the most? How might this experience make that concept more intuitive?
• How can you help students move from defining terms (e.g., “convection”) to recognizing them in real time?
• What does it look like, in your classroom, for a student to demonstrate felt understanding rather than memorized knowledge?
• How might students describe thermodynamics differently after this experience?

3) Designing the Overnight Experience

• What scaffolding do students need before the overnight experience to make it meaningful rather than overwhelming?
• What safety boundaries are necessary, and how do they shape (but not diminish) the learning?
• How can you design alternative options that preserve the embodied learning goal for students who cannot participate overnight?

4) Your Subject Beyond the Classroom

• When you teach thermodynamics, what implicit message do students receive about where knowledge comes from?
• How often do your lessons ask students to connect physics to their own bodies and environments?
• What would it mean for your classroom to treat the natural world as a site of learning, not just an “example?”
• In what ways can physics education foster awareness, humility, and connection?