Matter With Water

## Created By

E. Dembrow

1/20/12

## Standards

SC.1.P.8.1: Sort objects by observable properties, such as size, shape, color, temperature, weight, texture, and whether objects sink or float

TH.1.S.3.1: Use simple acting techniques to portray a person, place, action or thing

## Lesson Objective

I can role play the part of a molecule for a solid, a liquid or a gas

## Essential Question

Do you know the real difference between solid ice and liquid water?

What would you look like if you were a part of a piece of ice?

## Materials

10 3x5 cards with "water molecule" written on them, large yellow circle representing the sun, 10 cards with 100 degrees Celsius written on them

## Procedures

1. As the discussion develops, ask "Do you know the real difference between solid ice and liquid water?"
2. "What would you look like if you were a part of a piece of ice?"
3. Explain to students that they will be the particles and role-playing what a solid, liquid and gas look like
4. Choose several students (6-10) to represent water molecules. Students don't have to know the word molecule. Knowing that all matter is made of small particles is enough
5. Each student represents an individual water molecule (particle)
6. Have students gather in an open area, and give each of them an index card with "water molecule" or "water particle" written on it
7. First, have students simulate a solid by standing close together in a group in orderly rows. Remind students that, as a solid, each individual should remain still and unable to move. However, as a frozen water molecule, ice, they might "shiver"
8. Reveal a picture of fire or the Sun to the students and explain that you are heating the solid ice they represent
9. Because ice melts, they must now represent a liquid. To be the liquid water molecule, they must "do-si-do" and move around each other. Let them have some fun and move around a bit but be alert for students who get too far away
10. Now, tell the students that you are increasing the temperature -- so much so that they will start to boil. Hand them cards with 100 degrees C written on them
11. At this point, all of the individual molecules have so much energy that they are unable to escape from the group and spread off by themselves throughout the classroom. This is becoming water vapor and "evaporating" into the air of the room. Students are not gas molecules, existing as individual entities in the atmosphere.
12. Finally, simulate condensation and freezing by reversing the process. As "cooling" occurs, the individual gas molecules condense back into a liquid. Students come back together as a group
13. Remove the sun as the signal for the molecules to "freeze"
14. Students return to the non-moving state and are able to "shiver" only again

 Assessment Strategies

Have all students stand at their desk. Call out "solid, liquid or gas" and have the students individually react as the appropriate molecule. When you call out "gas", students should stop in place, feet still but shivering allowed. Observe- do students show appropriate movement for the different molecules?

## Evaluation of Lesson (Reflection)

Students loved dramatizing the molecules changing states of matter and it really helped them to remember and understand an otherwise abstract idea