Week 13: Matter Behavior

 

This week in lab, we looked into the behavior of matter by revisiting the M&M experiment we did a couple of weeks ago. We had also continued our discussion on density. We investigated into if we thought a bigger dice and a smaller dice would sink or float. We were given complete freedom to do whatever we saw fit to test our hypothesis. We calculated the density of the dice to see whether we thought the dice would sink or float, and both of the dice ended up sinking. 

We were also tasked with investigating whether certain colored M&Ms spread out faster than others. My group first tried it with just regular water, and we guessed that the lighter colored M&Ms would spread faster than the darker colored M&Ms because we guessed there was less dye. We found that the orange M&Ms spread out fastest and the brown ones spread out the slowest. We then put the M&Ms into sugared water to see if that had any effect on the speed of the color spreading out. We noticed that the M&Ms spread out a lot slower in sugared water. I am curious as to why that is. I am also still wondering why certain M&M colors spread faster than others. 

We were not given exact directions as to what we were supposed to do to test our hypothesis, but everything was still clear. We got to use our creativity to create an experiment to figure out which colors spread faster. I liked this idea because each group had a different way of testing their hypothesis. We got to see many different ideas and results. 

I can apply this to my future teaching by including more hands-on activities in the classroom. I like doing hands-on activities as they make the learning more engaging and personal. It gives students more agency to take charge and experiment with the questions they were given. Making some kind of model to demonstrate their learning can also be helpful in deepening their understanding. We have made multiple models on whiteboards in lab to explain what we have been learning and talking about.