1. Explain the first law of thermodynamics (Chapt. 3).  Give several examples that demonstrate this law.
2. What is potential energy?  kinetic energy?  Give examples for each.
3. What is heat?  heat capacity?
4. Why does the tile floor in a bathroom feel colder to your feet than a rug does even though both are at the same temperature?
5. A house is well insulated to keep in heat in the winter.  Will this make the house too hot in the summer?  Explain.
6. Walking outside without a jacket on a 32°F day may not be pleasant but plunging into a pool of 32 °F water is excruciating.  What does this tell you about the relative abilities of air and water to transfer heat?  Which of the three modes of heat transfer (see chapter 4) seems the most significant in this case.
7. In each pair, which has the greater entropy:  1 gram of water or 1 gram of ice?  a neat stack of playing cards or those cards tossed on the floor? 1 O₂ molecule ( has 2 oxygen atoms bonded together) or 2 separate oxygen atoms?
8. The heat capacity of water is 1 cal/g °C.  How many calories of heat would be required to raise the temperature of 50 grams of water from 0°C to 25°C.
9. Does entropy increase or decrease during the process of photosynthesis?  Does this violate the second law of thermodynamics?  Explain.

[Adapted from Trefil, J. and R. M. Hazen. 1995.  Instructor's Mannual.  The Sciences: an integrated approach.  John  Wiley and Sons]