Making Hypotheses

• A bag of M&Ms can help introduce students to the process of making hypotheses that they can confirm. Ask students to guess how many M&Ms a bag of the candies contains. The guesses that different students make are their hypotheses. Students can also make hypotheses about the number of M&Ms of each different color in the bag. In order to determine the accuracy of their hypotheses, ask the students to open the bag and count the number of pieces.
  
  

Testing for Viscosity

• Viscosity is the property of a liquid that indicates how resistant it is to flow. Pour oil into three different test tubes and place the test tubes in locations that expose them to different temperatures. One goes in warm water in a bathtub, another into a refrigerator and the third remains at room temperature. Ask students to make guesses about which of the three oils will be easier to swirl after about 15 minutes of exposure to these different temperatures. They will find that the refrigerated oil has become harder to swirl and the warmed oil easier.
  
  

Changes of State

• Changes of state, such as from solid state to liquid state, depend on temperature. To illustrate this, pour water into one vessel and oil into another, clearly labeling them. Place the two vessels, which should be able to withstand the low temperature, in the freezer. Using a thermometer, you can demonstrate that the temperature of the water at its freezing point is higher than the temperature of the oil. You can also demonstrate that the boiling point of oil is higher than the boiling point of water, by heating up the two liquids in separate vessels.
  
  

Sound Notes

• Space available determines in part whether a sound is of a higher note or lower note relative to other sounds. Students can investigate this by setting up glass jars with different amounts of water in them. When they tap the jars with a fork, or other such implement, they will find that each jar sounds a different note.