Jasleen notices that the frying pan at home is made of metal, but its handle is made of hard plastic

Why

Jasleen is correct that strength matters and that cost is a real reason things are made the way they are — her thinking isn't silly. But she is judging the handle by the pan's job. The pan's job is to pass heat from the flame to the food quickly, and metal is very good at that. The handle's job is the opposite: to let a hand hold the pan without getting burnt, so it needs a material that does NOT let heat pass through easily, like hard plastic or wood. A metal handle would carry the stove's heat straight into the cook's palm. That is the big idea of choosing materials: each part gets the material whose properties suit its own job, not one 'best' material for everything. Test: look around the kitchen — steel tongs and ladles often have plastic or wooden grips, and pressure cooker handles are made of a hard plastic, not bare metal. Esha is right: the handle is a different material because its job, staying cool enough to hold, needs a different property from the pan's.