Spring SAVY 2018, Day 3- What’s the Matter (Kindergarten)
During our third we of SAVY, we got to explore some of the changes that happen during a chemical reaction. In our opening discussion of the day, we reviewed what we learned last week about the different states of matter and physical properties of a substance. We learned some new vocabulary about changing between states such as deposition (gas to solid), sublimation (solid to gas), and condensation (gas to liquid). We took one specific example of water boiling (changing from a liquid to a solid) and hypothesized what would happen to water if it was boiled in space. We watched this video to compare water boiling on earth (with gravity) and water boiling in space (with no gravity).
We then began our discussion of chemical changes that occur when two different substances react with one another. Here is a neat video that helps explain some of the concepts of a chemical reaction.
To get some hands on experience, we performed some experiments to determine whether a chemical change was occurring. We took four solid substances (baking soda, baking powder, corn starch, and borax) and mixed each of them with four liquids (water, vinegar, idonine solution, and pH indicator). Ad we mixed each of the solids with each of the liquids, we recorded our observations and looked for signs that a chemical reaction had occurred. Some of these signs we looked for were a color change and bubbling (release of a gas). When we saw either of these happening, we concluded that a chemical reaction was occurring.
This week we introduced the idea of acids and bases when we were working with the indicator solution, but next week we will learn more about what exactly is an acid or a base and experiment with some household items that fit into these categories.
-Dorothy