LET’S MAKE A SPLASH

Water is a stable compound that behaves in predictable ways.  It is the global substance that provides the perfect opportunity to investigate the nature of liquids. 

NATIONAL STANDARDS

Students will learn about waters properties and interactions through open inquiry 

OBJECTIVES

 GATHERING MATERIAL YOUR CLASSROOM EXPLORATIONS

Collect materials for water exploration.  Materials may include:

• Plastic 1 Gal. Container per group, clear if possible

• Plastic pop or water bottles

• Shampoo bottles

• Funnels

• Scoops

• Containers with holes in the bottom

• Sponges

• Aluminum pie pans

• Plastic spoons

• Small rocks

• Paper towels

• Short sections of PVC pipe

• Bottle cap

• Wooden blocks

• Pencils

• Erasers

• Coins

• Washers

• Craft sticks

• Straws

• Paperclips

You get the idea 

MANAGING YOUR CLASSROOM

Divide your classroom into small discovery teams of 3 students each and provide each team with a tub of water and a selection of some of the materials.

1-2-3 EXPLORING ABOUT WITH QUESTIONS AND CURIOSITY 

Invite your Discovery Teams to explore the water.  Be sure to allow your teams enough time to explore the water thoroughly by observing, smelling, feeling, and moving it with the materials you have provided.   Encourage the teams to talk and discuss what they are discovering with each other.

 Inquiry questions that can guide your team’s investigations:

The Discovery Teams will come up with a great many observations.  You may hear comments such as:

• It’s wet

• It runs

• It drips

• I can carry it in containers with no holes

• The containers with holes leak

• A sponge with holes carries lots of water

• Paper towels carry water

• Pipes can carry water

• It sticks to things and makes them wet

• It pours

• It splashes

• It squirts

• It spills

• I can see right through it

• Things in it look different

• It makes rain

• Some things sink and some things float on it

 The questions and observations your students make can guide them to further investigations.  Write their comments down.  After the exploration, gather the teams together to discuss and list their discoveries and questions. 

A-B-C  EXTEND THE EXPERIENCE BY INVENTING IDEAS FROM THE INVESTIGATIONS AND DISCOVERIES

Ask the children what other things they would like to find out about water. Create a room list of questions the children have generated. Here are questions you might want to pose.

• What was the water like?

• How full do you think we can we make a cup of water?

• How many ways can we carry water?

• If water sits out for a long time, what do you think will happen to it?

• Where does water come from?

• What kinds of things sink, what kinds of things float?

• Do you think we could we put pipes together and move water?

Together classify what the children want to find out into 3 groups:
1). What we can do.
2). What we might be able to do.
3). What is not possible to do at school.

Here are other investigations your Discovery Teams will want to explore:

• Add a drop or 1 object (such as a paper clip) at a time until the water overflows.  What did the surface of the water look like just before it spilled over? 

• Use different containers, rags, sponges, etc. to move water and measure how much the Discovery teams could move each time.  Use a standard or single container for measuring volume so comparisons are easy.

• Collect lots of bottles and do experiments to compare the volumes of each bottle.  What holds the most or the least and how would we know?  If I pour bottle A into larger bottle B, where will the water level be? 

• Use sections of a 1-inch PCV (plastic) pipe and various fittings to allow your Discovery Teams to construct a length of pipe in which they can pour and transport water from one container to another.  It is not necessary to glue joints together but there will be some leakage.  Also have available some funnels and multiple tubs of water.

• Place 6-8 baby food jars full of water on a shelf and leave all but the first jar open.  Then, each day put a lid on another jar until all jars have lids.  This provides a “living graph” of the rate of evaporation. 

• Use 4 or so paper cups to freeze water in and examine them, one at a time, at different periods during the freezing process to see how ice forms.

• Get cookie molds or other molds (such as a rubber surgical glove – really great!) and fill with water and freeze.  NEVER put water in a glass container or any other container that is sealed or has a small mouth and then freeze it.  Unlike most materials water expands when it freezes and can cause some containers to explode.

• Put some ice and salt in a cup of water.  Then put water in a plastic test tube (about ¼ full) and set in the slat/ice.  Now watch the water in the test tube freeze.  Try the same thing in just ice and the water will not freeze.  Compare temperatures of just ice and salt mixed with ice.  Salt makes ice get colder.   

• Use paintbrushes or spray bottles to paint on paper, the sidewalk or whatever.  What does it look like after a period of time?

• Put a piece of paper towel in the bottom of a clear plastic cup and turn the cup upside down.  Now push the cup down into a container of water and notice that water does no get up into the cup to make the towel get wet.  Air is trapped in the cup and will not let the water in.  How can we let the air out so water goes into the cup?  Could we tip the cup?  Could we use a plastic tube or straw and push it into the water and bend it so it goes up into the cup?  Now reverse the situation and try to fill an upside down submerged cup with air.  Can we blow air into the cup with a straw?  (Note: a special object for rescuing people from a sinking submarine is just a big inverted “metal cup” or diving bell that can hold several people.)

 LITERACY CONNECTION

 Informational:

• Water is Wet – Sally Cartwright

•  Floating Things – McDonald Education

•  Floating and Sinking – Ed Catherall

 Fictional:

•  Who Sank The Boat – Pamela Allen

•  Water From Sounds After Dark – Bill Martins

 GREAT IDEAS FROM KIDS:

 

GREAT IDEAS FROM TEACHERS;

 

Super “THINK ABOUT” questions to ponder: