Describe a Specific Heat.

There is a nice example in the reading on the handout that shows you how to go about setting up your calculations to solve for the specific heat of the metal using the changes in water temperature.In lab, the experiment this experiment is performed with copper metal first to ensure that students understand the experimental procedure and to see how closely their specific heat value matches that of the known specific heat value of copper. If you read through the handout, you will see that the known value is 0.39 J/gC. After performing a trial with the copper known, the procedure is repeated with a sample of unknown metal to determine its specific heat value.