why that material?

Look carefully at the objects you have been given.

Complete the table below – the first row has

been filled in as an example.

Why that material?

Name of object What is object used for?

What material has been used to make it?

Why has this material been picked?

Frying pan Cooking food Metal Hard and strong. It lets heat through quickly.

Topic 2: Material world

Wood? Metal? Ceramic?

Paper? Plastic?

Rock? Wool? Fabric?

I will ask my teacher to make this bigger and

laminate it so we can use it for lots of

investigations.

Investigation planning board

When you are planning your investigation, work in a group and let everyone write down their ideas for each part on sticky notes. Discuss all the ideas and pick the ones that will make the best plan. Keep all the other ideas, because you may want to change your plan once you get started!

Decide these two before you think about the rest.

Place sticky notes hereWhat will you change?

What will you measure to show a change?

Place sticky notes here Place sticky notes hereNow think about the rest of the plan.

Our question.

This is the table for our results.

We will make it fair by…

We will use…

1. Find out more about foam.

a) Look at the foam with a magnifying glass.

How big are the air bubbles in the foam?

b) How many air bubbles are there?

2. Do the bubbles collapse quickly, making the foam fall flat? Can it keep a shape for 3 minutes?

3. Does the foam last a long time?

4. Does the foam spread easily and can you mould it?

5. How high can you pile it up?

6. What happens to the foam on top of hot water?

7. What happens to the foam when it is near a lamp?

Foamy fun


Try these experiments and record everything that happens.

Experiment 1 Place two tablespoons of bicarbonate of soda into a balloon using a funnel. Half fill a plastic bottle with vinegar. Carefully stretch the balloon around the top of the bottle but keep the balloon down so that the bicarbonate doesn’t fall into the bottle just yet. Tip the balloon up to allow the bicarbonate to drop into the bottle . Hold the top of the balloon onto the bottle.

What happened?

Experiment 2 Put some citric acid solution in a jar and take the temperature. Add a spoonful of bicarbonate of soda and watch what happens to the temperature. Feel the side of the container as well.

What happened?

Experiment 3 Put a thermometer in a jar and close the lid. Take the temperature after five minutes. Put a large piece of steel wool in another jar and soak in vinegar for about three minutes. Drain off the vinegar. Quickly wrap the steel wool round the base of a thermometer or data logger and place in the first jar

and close the lid. Read the temperature after five minutes.

What happened?

Experiment 4 Put a small amount of the ‘liquid’ you have been given into a foil container. Use a peg to hold the foil container over a night light.

What happened?

Experiment 5 Make a small container with foil and put in a few grains of sugar. Heat this over a night light using a peg.

What happened?

Signs of change

Mix about 40 g of borax with a litre of water.

Stir well to dissolve the borax until it looks white and cloudy.

Leave it to stand to clear and there will be some undissolved powder at

the bottom.

Pour about two tablespoons of white PVA glue into the borax mixture,

which should form a stringy sort of plastic material. You can colour the

glue with food colouring.

Lift out as much of the gloop as possible and gently squeeze, slide and

roll from one hand to the other.

Don’t fold. And wash in water a couple of times.

Dry your hands and continue rolling until the glob holds together as a

ball.

Find out about Flubber

Try gently throwing onto a smooth, hard surface.

Leave the ball of Flubber on newspaper.

Pull slowly apart and then try pulling quickly.

Push Flubber into a small pot.

Leave a piece out in the air for a couple of days

Making flubber


Material world – Test

1. Tick ONE box to complete each sentence:

a) Plastic is used for trays because it

…is light

…bends

…floats.

b) Wood is used for matches because it

…floats

…snaps

…burns.

c) Steel is used for nails because it

…does not bend easily

…rusts

…is shiny.

2. I want to find the best fabric for making a bath mat. I set up two different tests.

Test 1– Does the fabric slip easily on a smooth surface?

I slowly lifted the ramp until the fabric started to slide. Here are the results of Test 1:

1 mark

1 mark

1 mark

Lifting the ramp

1kg1kg

bath matThe fabric starts to slide

ruler

1kg mass fabric ramp



a) Draw the results in a bar chart.

Test 2 – Does the fabric absorb water?

I poured 500 cm3 of water onto each fabric and held up the fabric to let the water drip off. I measured how much had dripped off after five minutes.

Here are the results of Test 2:

b) Put the fabrics in order of absorbency.

Least absorbent Most absorbent

c) Which fabric will make the best bath mat?

d) Explain why you chose that fabric.

2 marks

1 mark

Fabric Height of ramp when fabric starts to slide (cm)

A 11

B 8

C 13

D 16

E 4

F 10

Fabric Amount that dripped off (cm3)

A 50

B 435

C 0

D 360

E 45

F 210

1 mark

1 mark


3. I am mixing materials. I put different materials in four clear plastic bags. I then tied the top of each bag, watched what happened and recorded my observations.

a) Write the names of the three liquids that the children used.

(i)

(ii)

(iii)

b) In which bag was dissolving the only

change?

c) Why did Bag C puff up?

d) Three of the mixtures can be separated to get the starting materials back again. One of the mixtures cannot be separated.

Which bag has a mixture that cannot be separated?

4. Here are three different types of sugar.

The table below shows how long it takes for 10g of each type of sugar to dissolve in 50 cm3 of water.

a) Look at the table. Work out the averages for each sugar. Write them in the right hand column.

1 mark

1 mark

1 mark

Mixture Observations

Bag A: Brown sugar and water Water turns brown and cannot see the sugar after a while.

Bag B: Oil and water Oil floats on top of the water.

Bag C: Bicarbonate of soda and vinegar

Lots of fizzing. It looks frothy. Bag puffs up.

Bag D: Bicarbonate of soda and oil

Bicarbonate goes in a lump at the bottom.

1 mark

Sugar A: large grains

Sugar B: medium grains

Sugar C: small grains

Type of sugar Time taken for sugar to dissolve at room

temperature (seconds)

Average

Sugar A: large grains 360 365 370

Sugar B: medium grains 190 225 200

Sugar C: small grains 160 165 161

3 marks



b) How does the size of the sugar affect the time to dissolve?

c) Explain how you know the test was fair.

d) Explain why the test was done more than once.

5. A wet sponge was put on some scales and the mass was measured during the day. The graph below shows the results of what happened.

a) What is the mass of the wet sponge at the start of the investigation? g

b) Describe how the mass of the wet sponge changes over the first four hours.

c) What process causes the mass of the drying sponge to change?

1 mark

1 mark

1 mark

0 1 2 3 4 5 60

10

20

30

40

50

60

Mass of sponge (g)

Time (hours)

1 mark

1 mark

1 mark


d) What is the mass of the dry sponge? g

e) Some children discuss the results. Look at their ideas below.

Use the graph to help you write ‘true’ or ‘false’ next to each idea.

6. The graph shows how a puddle 150 cm wide changed on a cold day.

a) Draw a different line to show how a puddle 150 cm wide would change on a warmer day.

b) Explain why the two lines are different.

1 mark

1 mark

2 marks

1 mark

The sponge was still drying after

five hours.

There was 20 g of water in

the sponge at the start.

The sponge dried most

quickly in the first two hours.

7.00 8.00 9.00 10.00 11.00 12.000

25

50

75

100

125

150

Width of the puddle in cm

Time of day

B



7. I put a wax candle on some scales. The teacher lit the candle and left it to burn.

a) I noticed a liquid around the bottom of the wick.

What is this liquid?

b) Write the name of the process when a solid turns to a liquid.

c) I measured the mass of the candle every 30 minutes. My results are shown on this graph.

1 mark

1 mark

0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 3000

2

4

6

8

10

12

16

14

Mass of candle (g)

Time (minutes)

How the mass of the candle changed

wick

1 mark


Draw the table of results used to draw the graph

d) Look at the graph.

Why did the mass of the candle go down while it was burning?

e) Is this change reversible or irreversible?

How do you know?

3 marks

1 mark

1 mark

1 mark

why that material?

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