PhysicsQuest 2026: Physics of Climate
Students will investigate how solar energy transforms into heat through a series of hands-on stations exploring light, surface absorption, and thermal expansion.
Students will connect the experimental results to the concept of heat-trapping gases and climate change.
Students will explain how the greenhouse effect works using evidence from demonstrations and measurements.
In this experiment, students explore enhanced weathering by using basalt dust to capture and sequester carbon dioxide (CO2).
Critical conversations can help communities to engage in shared understanding and seek balance among competing values and priorities, which can often lead to long-term solutions.
The Breakthrough Discovery of Eunice Newton Foote, the Forgotten Mother of Climate Science
By: Anaelle N. Roc
Forgotten Science
Did you know that the first known person to make a breakthrough in what is now climate science was forgotten for more than 100 years? Until 2011, the experiments, performed by a woman named Eunice Newton Foote in 1856, were buried deep in the pages of history. The designation of “first” is, instead, attributed to the Irish physicist John Tyndall, who published his work three years later. Though his paper was slightly more robust due to his access to proper laboratories and funding, Foote’s work was especially impressive due to the scrappiness of her experiments. She cleverly performed significant science – even predicting climate change! – at home, using relatively household materials. As you read more about Foote, ask yourself: Why do you suppose her research was overlooked? Why is some science recognized and other science forgotten throughout history?
Groundbreaking, yet simple, experiment
Foote set out to measure how different gases trapped heat and accelerated temperature increase. To do this, she used several glass jars, an air pump, and a thermometer, isolating the different gases that make up air (such as hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide, with a control group of normal air). Foote left them in the sun, measuring the change in temperature every couple of minutes. She found that carbon dioxide not only reached far higher temperatures than any other gas, but also trapped the heat better, requiring far more time to cool back. If you try the related PhysicsQuest kit activity, you will experience for yourself how this groundbreaking result required only a simple setup and a bit of inspiration, without expensive equipment. Hopefully, this experiment will spark your own curiosity and creativity in designing experiments, because you have everything you need to do it!
The true genius of her discovery was the intellectual leap Foote made to connect the experiment to broader global implications — implications that those who first read her paper either dismissed or failed to notice — that, if the atmosphere ever contained an increased amount of carbon dioxide, the earth would warm. This is the first known hypothesis of the greenhouse effect, the effect responsible for keeping plants warm in the winter, making Venus the hottest planet, and global climate change. Do you think that you would have come to the same conclusions? This is the principle on which climate science is built. We are currently living in the era Foote predicted, one where we are experiencing increased temperatures due to the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This excess is largely from the human environmental footprint.
Why was her work blocked?
Because she was a woman, Foote was not allowed to read her own paper at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting of 1856, and her results were not published in that year’s report. In fact, we only know of her appearance at all from a report in a local newspaper, The New York Tribune. The man who read her paper, AAAS member Joseph Henry, only briefly praised her efforts and openly admitted to seeing no broader findings of importance. Her science, and her name, fell into obscurity until 2011, when she was rediscovered by the geologist Raymond Sorenson.
Though her scientific work was forgotten, her other life’s work would help in laying the foundation for scientists like her to eventually gain more respect in the workforce. Foote and her husband, Elisha, lived in Seneca Falls, New York, during the height of the women’s rights movement. They both attended the Seneca Falls convention in 1848, and signed the “Declaration of Sentiments,” an important document demanding the equal treatment of women. Though Foote would devote most of her life to advocacy work after publishing a few more scientific papers, she never left science fully behind, patenting a few inventions in her name. Many historians believe she helped Elisha with his inventions as well, and maybe even patented some of her own inventions under his name. Either way, her legacy in climate science is tangible, and it is our work to ensure her name is never forgotten again. How do you think we can do this, and build a scientific community that celebrates all science, and all scientists?
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