Sandstone in a bottle
Many visual learners will enjoy watching the swirling sand and stone inside the bottle. Moments after settling the sand will not fall (until jolted) even though the bottle is inverted. Hours later the water is clear inside because the remaining sand has settled.
These bottles are best prepared at recess, outside.
Materials:
Students who participate will:
1. Scoop sand to fill the first two inches of the bottle.
2. Rinse the sand inside:
a. Fill the bottle with water. b. Turn it over and back once. c. When most of the sand settles pour the murky water out. d. Repeat three or four times to remove the finest silt from the sand.
3. Fill another inch of the bottle with the small stones.
4. Fill with water to a half inch from the top.
5. You the teacher can choose to seal the cap with a very light coat of rubber cement around the top. WARNING: Rubber cement is toxic! Monitor closely when in use and keep out of reach when not.
Procedure:
When the children have all had a chance to turn the bottle over, put the bottles OUT OF REACH and ask them to write guesses or answers about the following questions:
1. When the bottle is turned upside down, do the grains of sand or the small stones settle to the bottom faster?
2. When most of the sand has settled, are you more likely to see stones at the bottom of the sand or at the top?
3. Turn the bottle over and count to three. Are there any rocks still swirling or is it just sand suspended in the water?
When a student has shown curiosity in at least one of the questions, ask them to write a guess or prediction. Allow that individual to handle the bottles again in order to answer their chosen question or demonstrate their knowledge. Students must repeat their trials to be certain of the pattern.
Close:
Model how to make spoken sentences about the patterns into written answers to the guesses and predictions.
For example: "I tried it six times and every time the stones were closer to the bottom." "The stones fall sooner than the sand."
Enrichment:
Turn the bottle upside-down and then slowly and gently turn it right side up. The sand and stone will stay compacted in place while the water falls to the lower part of the bottle. How does the sand then appear like a stone? At the end of the day set the bottles aside where they can be seen but not disturbed. Predict what the bottles will look like tomorrow morning after the sand has settled all night. I allow my students to play with these bottles during centers time and they also may check them out overnight just like the books in our overnight classroom library.
Weather | Pets | Magnets | Plants | Rocks | Colors | Dinosaurs | Experiments | Static | Oceans