Week 5 September 6, 2018 Density

In a whirlwind of activity, we finished Unit 1- The Nature of Science. We opened this class with an introductory video to density shown below:

We followed this introductory video with a real-world application of density concepts. We layered juices with varying sugar contents one on top of the other. The "heaviest" juice was cran-apple juice with a sugar content of 32g. The next heaviest juice was blue Hawaiian punch with a sugar content of 15g. The least dense juice, white cherry Gatorade was layered at the top. Although it was harder to see the Gatorade top layer, the blue punch and cran-apple layers were very pronounced. This demo proved to be a tasty treat for the students.

Next, the class divided into groups and rotated to lab stations they had to make measurements that would allow them to calculate the density of liquid water, the density of a regular solid (rectangular block of wood), and the density of an irregularly shaped object (5 marbles). We then calculated the density of the objects as a class. This lab was glued into the students' interactive notebook as a basic reference.

Finally, students were given additional density problems in which they calculated the density of three liquids and have to color a graduated cylinder based on their density calculations. We worked three of the density problems during the class using the GUESS method, a procedure I've found to be extremely helpful in working through word problems. Students were introduced to the Density Triangle, a non-algebraic method of rearranging the density equation to solve for mass and/or volume. The rest of the problems were given as this week's homework assignment (worksheet available at the link below).

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Xz5dMdre7YKso1fuCFy-MmofvcG4ODcJ

The notes that go into the interactive notebook for this week are shown below:

Next week, we will begin Unit 2 Matter and its Properties