As part of our Flex Friday rotations, the students in Kindergarten - Fifth grade at CHES are learning about the states of matter and what causes matter to change from one state to another.
The lesson begins with the students listening to the book, Snowmen all year. In this book, the little boy wants to play with his snowman all year. The students are asked if they thought the boy could make a house that would allow the snowman to be around all year. They are challenged with figuring out which material would make the best insulated house for the snowman's house.
In order to solve the problem, the students conducted an experiment to determine which material would be the best insulator. They chose 3 materials that they thought would be the best and wrapped an ice cube in each. They were then placed in a zip lock bag. They made predictions as to which material would be the best. After 30 minutes the ice cues were unwrapped and the best insulator was determined by how big the ice cubes were and how much water was present in the bags.