Air Pressure Curriculum

Section 3: Overview—Explanation of Photograph

This section addresses students' tendency to apply simple linear causal structures to pressure-related phenomena such that they miss the complexity involved. The concept of relational causality is introduced to help students to understand that often a relationship of higher and lower pressure accounts for pressure-related outcomes. Boyles' and Charles' Law are introduced and interpreted using relational causality.

Explanation of Photo

The flight of an airplane is explained by the relational causality involved in Bernoulli's principle. Faster moving air over the curved surface of the top of the wing exerts less air pressure than that traveling over the relatively flatter surface of the bottom of the wing, resulting in a pressure lift.