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Essential Science for Teachers: Physical Science

Classroom Resources > Essential Science for Teachers: Physical Science > 5. Density and Pressure > 5.5 Interactive Activity: 5-Question Survey

Science

K-2, 3-5, 6-8

Density and Pressure Interactive Activity: 5-Question Survey

5-Question Survey: Density and Pressure

The series of questions presented in this activity will help you find out your ideas or your students’ ideas about matter. As highlighted in this video series, when we articulate our misconceptions, we are taking the first step to rectifying them.

Surveying is one of many educational strategies that teachers can use to elicit ideas. Even a brief survey, such as the one presented next, can provide a learning opportunity for students and teachers alike. Students can reveal their misconceptions for the first time as well as open their minds to accepting scientific points of view. Teachers can form a basis for making instructional decisions, whether to validate students’ correct yet unsure ideas, confront student misconceptions, reinforce ideas that are forming, or complement ideas that are accurate but only partial explanations.

When viewing the answers to each of the survey questions, you will also see how others answered the questions.

Before you complete the survey, please identify who you are (pick just one):

I am a teacher. I instruct:
 Grades K-2
 Grades 3-6
 Grades 7-12
 College students

I am a student. I attend:
 Grades K-2
 Grades 3-6
 Grades 7-12
 College

I am a member of the general public

Survey Question 1

A solid rubber ball sinks when placed in water. What will happen if the ball is cut in half and one of the smaller pieces is placed underwater?

 A. The smaller piece will rise.
 B. The smaller piece will sink.
 C. The smaller piece will stay motionless.
 D. The smaller piece will dissolve.
 E. There is no way to predict what will happen.

Survey Question 2

A pebble is dropped into a cup of water and sinks to the bottom of the cup. A solid plastic bead of the exact same weight is dropped into the same cup but floats on the top of the water. What can you say about the pebble?

 A. The pebble is made of the same material as the bead.
 B. The pebble is the same size as the plastic bead.
 C. The pebble has the same mass as the water.
 D. The pebble is denser than the plastic bead.
 E. The pebble can’t be compared to the bead or the water.

Survey Question 3

A pebble is dropped into a cup of water and sinks to the bottom of the cup. A solid metal bead of exactly the same size is dropped into the same cup and sinks to the bottom of the cup. How do the pebble and the metal bead compare?

 A. The metal bead and the pebble have the same density.
 B. The metal bead and the pebble are the same mass.
 C. The metal bead and the pebble are denser than water.
 D. The metal bead and the pebble contain the same materials.
 E. The metal bead and the pebble are as dense as the water.

Survey Question 4

A solid cube of unknown material has a mass of 10 grams. It has a volume of 4 cm3. The material has a density of:

 A. 2.5 g/cm3
 B. 40 g/cm3
 C. 2.5 grams
 D. 0.4 g/ cm3

Survey Question 5

If the cube in question 2 were not soluble in water and were placed in a swimming pool, it would:

 A. sink.
 B. float.
 C. stabilize somewhere between the surface and the bottom.
 D. be impossible to predict what the cube would do.

Now that you’ve completed the survey, make sure to read the closer looks, if you haven’t already, to learn more about these topics.

Answer 1

The answer is B: the smaller piece will sink. Because it sank, we know that the original ball was more dense than the water it is in. Although the smaller piece is now a new shape and size, these are extensive properties that don’t affect the density of the material, which is an intensive property and determines whether it will rise or sink.

Answer 2

The answer is D: the pebble is denser than the plastic bead. Although the plastic bead and the pebble are the same weight, weight is not the determining factor in rising and sinking. It is an object’s “weight for size,” or density, compared to the density of the fluid that it is in that predicts whether it will rise or sink.

Answer 3

The answer is C: the metal bead and the pebble are denser than water. While they may have the same density, and may even contain some of the same materials, the only thing that can be said for sure from the evidence given is that they are both denser than water.

Answer 4

The answer is A: 2.5 g/cm3. As stated in the video density is calculated by dividing mass by volume.

 

Answer 5

The answer is A: the cube would sink. As stated in the video, water has a density of 1 g/cm3. Since the desnity of the cube is 2.5 cm3, it is more dense than water, and will sink.

Series Directory

Essential Science for Teachers: Physical Science

Credits

Produced by Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. 2004.
  • Closed Captioning
  • ISBN: 1-57680-749-5

Sections

5.2 A Closer Look

5.3 Children’s Ideas About Density and Pressure

5.4 Featured Classroom: Tina Grotzer; Arlington, MA

5.5 Interactive Activity: 5-Question Survey

Workshops

Session 1 What Is Matter?: Properties and Classification of Matter

What is matter? This question at first seems deceptively simple — matter is all around us. Yet how do we define it? What does a block of cheese have in common with the Moon? What are the characteristics of matter that set it apart from something that is definitely not matter? Matter is one of the big ideas in science. Most areas in physical science can be discussed and explained in terms of matter or energy, and matter is a subject that naturally bridges to the other sciences (chemistry, life, earth science, etc.). In this session, we’ll build a working definition of matter, learn to distinguish between its “accidental” and “essential” properties, and explore it through classification, an activity with a rich history in science.

Session 2 The Particle Nature of Matter: Solids, Liquids, and Gases

What simple idea links together all of chemistry and physics? How can a close study of the macroscopic differences among solids, liquids, and gases support a microscopic model of tiny, discrete, and constantly moving particles? In this session, participants learn how the "particle model" can be turned into a powerful tool for generating predictions about the behavior of matter under a wide range of conditions.

Session 3 Physical Changes and Conservation of Matter

What happens when sugar is dissolved in a glass of water or when a pot of water on the stove boils away? Do things ever really "disappear?" In everyday life, observations that things "disappear" or "appear" seem to contradict one of the fundamental laws of nature: matter can be neither created nor destroyed. In this session, participants learn how the principles of the particle model are consistent with conservation of matter.

Session 4 Chemical Changes and Conservation of Matter

How can the particle model account for what happens when two clear liquids are mixed together and they produce a milky-white solid? What happens when iron rusts? Where do the elements come from? In this session, participants extend the particle model by looking inside the particles, learn about some early chemical pioneers, and in the process discover how the law of conservation of matter applies even at the scale of atoms and molecules.

Session 5 Density and Pressure

What makes a block of wood rise to the surface of a bucket of water? Why do your ears pop when you swim deep underwater? In this session, participants examine density, an essential property of matter. They also look at how particles of matter are in constant motion, which leads to a deeper understanding of fluid pressure. Lastly, the concepts of pressure and density are investigated to explain the macroscopic phenomenon of rising and sinking.

Session 6 Rising and Sinking

Why does a hot air balloon rise into the sky? Why does ice rise in water, when a lump of solid wax will sink in a jar full of molten wax? In this session, participants generalize the model that has been developed about what rises and what sinks, using the idea of balance of forces.

Session 7 Heat and Temperature

What makes the liquid in a thermometer rise or fall in response to temperature? Which contains more heat — a boiling teakettle on the stove or a swimming pool of lukewarm water? In this session, participants focus on the difference between heat and temperature, and examine how both are defined in terms of particles. The particle model is then used to explain a number of everyday phenomena, from why things expand when they are heated to the role that temperature plays in changes of state.

Sessions 8 Extending the Particle Model of Matter

In this session, participants extend their understanding of the particle model to explain additional macroscopic phenomena, including the electrical properties of matter. Participants review the progression of ideas covered in the course and anticipate future developments in the understanding of matter.

Join us for conversations that inspire, recognize, and encourage innovation and best practices in the education profession.

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