Year 11 triple scientists are studying atmospheric pressure and why it decreases with height. The class stays in the lab while the science technician carries a phone running phyphox's pressure experiment from the ground floor to the top of the stairwell, pausing for thirty seconds on each landing, and the phone streams its graph to the board through phyphox's remote access on the school wifi. Students watch the trace fall by roughly 1.3 hectopascals over about 11 metres of climb, a change far too small to feel, and the teacher marks each landing on the graph as the steps appear; the phone also keeps its own recording, so the full trace can be shown if the wifi drops in the stairwell. When the technician returns with the height of each landing from the building plans, students calculate the fall in pressure per metre, use it to estimate the drop from the base to the top of a 300 m tower, and discuss why the real figure would be slightly different.
This page is one of a growing set of PICRAT examples by cell, subject and grade. Page maintained by Andy Perryer.