Project Tuesday and Nebel A/B1, A2, A3

This fall Tuesday week is Project or Lab day. Today we worked on our first science experiment. We are, for the moment, largely following Nebel's science curriculum.  So here's a rundown of what we have covered thus far... 

A/B1- Organization and Categorization

Discussion: We walked around the house and talked about how and why things are organized into categories. 

Hands-on: We pulled out a pan of miscellaneous fake gemstones and organized them using various categories. We experimented with trying to find categories that would have no stragglers and no overlaps. We failed. We talked about Venn Diagrams and put the beads in a Venn diagram I printed out. 

A2 Solids, Liquids, and Gasses

Discussion: We talked about the 3 states of water and compared them. We walked around and discussed whether things were solid, liquid or gas. We played with sugar and discussed why it was a solid even though you can pour it. We watched a video about states of matter. 

Hands-on: We played with water and ice cubes and compared their properties.

A3 Air is a Substance

Discussion: We reviewed the properties of matter (mass and volume) and that air is a gas (from the video). 

Hands-on: I picked up a glass jar and asked what was in it. Ben said, "Nothing." 

I dramatically swept it through the air -- "I have filled this jar with AIR. What is air?" "A gas." 

"If air is a gas it must have mass AND take up space. How do I know air takes up space? What happens if I turn this air upside down and try to put it in water? If the air really takes up space then the water shouldn't go in, right?" So I turned the jar upside down into a pan of water and, sure enough, none of the water went in the jar. Actually quite a bit of water ran all over the counter and our toes thanks to displacement. Then I released some bubbles and I asked what was happening. "Air is escaping!" 

This led to various experiments involving the two jars, air, bubbles, and floating. And more water on the floor. Which needed mopping anyway.

Experiment - States of Matter

Question: What happens to the temperature of water as its state changes.

Hypothesis: It gets hotter and hotter.

Procedure:

1) Put ice in water.

2) Warmed it in the microwave 1 minute.

3) Wrote how hot it was.

4) Repeat step 2.

Data:

So the graph looks great, and we had fun entering the data on the computer, but Ben had no idea what it meant. So we drew it the old-fashioned way on graph paper and I let him draw it himself. He got it when he put in the data points and connected the lines himself. Unfortunately the hand-drawn graph and original notes did not scan well...

He was VERY surprised when the temperature came to 212F and then did not rise any higher. He was also surprise how little it rose the first minute. We had a fascinating discussion about where the energy was going when the temperature was not rising much (to melting/making steam). We also noticed that the water went from 1 c at minute 6 to 3/4C at minute 10.