Some things just don’t get along well with each other. Take oil and water as an example, you can mix them together and shake as hard as you like, but they’ll never become friends….. or will they?
Upper Elementary students learn about solutions and different substances’ ability to mix by observing a jar of water, oil and food coloring.
Students note their observations down, changing variables and asking different questions. The bottles of liquid are turned upside down, swished around, and watched. Which is more dense? The oil or the water? Why do they stay separate? How does the food coloring react to the mixture?
I ask visiting student Kana his observations on the experiment. His exuberant and vehement reply: “Mother Vrinda Priya is the best teacher in the world! Even simple science ideas are so fun with all of her experiments!” What about the experiment? What did you learn?
“The oil molecules are larger than the molecules that make up water. So oil is less dense than water and will always float to the top. No matter how many times we turn the bottle around.”
In this TKG Academy classroom, oil plus water equals 10 year old kids looking forward to their next day at school.
