Week 6

During this week, we will experience the “messy” nature of scientific exploration. The primary science skill practiced during this week isclassifying — in this case, classifying matter as solids, liquids, or gases.

The term messy refers both to the ways in which students “mess about” with materials in their explorations and to the ways in which scientific explanations themselves are often “messy” because the distinctions among categories are not clear-cut. The main objective of this week is to help you, future teachers, understand that “messy” playand flexible thinking serve important functions for students who arelearning science

Classifying

:

Sorting objects or ideas into groups on the basis of similar properties

Matter

:

can be defined as anything that has weight or mass and takes up space (as opposed to energy, for example, which has neither of those qualities).

As a teacher I will teach students about classifying liquids, solids, and gases. I could do the trail mix experiment to show that a solid remains the same. I could do a few different experiments to show the classification between solid, liquid, gas, and matter.