Density

First students found their new seats. Today students discussed their root word homework based on numbers and we looked at the words they came up with. Some words were excellent examples for the numbers the root represented. For example mono could be monologue (1 speaker), monocle (1 eye glass lense), monobrow (1 eyebrow), monatomic (1 atom), monopoly (1 person in control). The words did not have to be scientific.

Next the students worked as a group on a quick review of the properties of solids, liquids, and gases, and the words that describe changing phase. Students know more than they think and are coming into the unit with a lot of prior knowledge.

Next we discussed density and all the types of definitions that go with it. Density measures matter in a given volume or the amount of stuff in a space. It can also refer to the amount of space between molecules. We looked at some diagrams and discussed scientifically why a person cannot walk through walls, why moving through air is easy, and why moving through water is slightly more difficult.

Students made a hypothesis about the densities of different liquids and they would react when mixed together. We did a quick demo with some liquids to see how their hypotheses stacked up.

At the end of class we did density calculation. Tomorrow we will discuss matter.