Relate observations regarding the addition of energy to particle motion.
 
In view of students, there are two 1000 ml beakers, one filled with cold water, and the other filled with hot water.  The instructor dropped a drop of food coloring into each beaker at the same time.  Students observed and recorded a minimum of three macroscopic drawings of the contents of the beaker at given time intervals.  Students recorded data in this way so they could see how each beaker looked after the same amount of time.
 
After examining the drawings and collaborative discussions, students drew storyboards of what they believed was happening at the particle level (microscopic) to explain their macroscopic observations.
 
Almost all students said that they had prior knowledge that warm water moves faster than cool water (fluids).  When asked how they knew this and what evidence they had to support this claim, they said they learned this idea in middle school, but couldn’t site any evidence to support the idea. 
After some questioning by the instructor, one student finally realized that the evidence that particles of warm fluids have greater motion than cold fluids was how the food coloring diffused at different speeds.
 
Since particles of food coloring mixed at different speeds in water of different temperatures, this must indicate that the particles of warm water are moving faster, or with greater motion (greater and more frequent particle collisions), than the cold particles.