While we were using the microscopes to look at the sugar + water, sand + water, and dirty water, we were also waiting for the water to evaporate to see if what we think may have been dissolving was still there when we could no longer see it with the microscope. Our findings were pretty interesting!
SAND: It seems as if the sand looked nearly the same after the water evaporated as compared to what it looked like before we added water to it. We are thinking that nothing really happens to it when it enters water.
SUGAR: It seems as if the sugar looked different than before. It looks like the sugar got smaller. We're thinking this means it dissolves. But we keep thinking it might have gone else where, too, since we can't really see it.
DIRTY WATER: Whoah. There is so much going on with the dirty water that we don't really know what is still there. Sadly, looking at this didn't really help us identify anything. We don't really know what is still there, but are thinking some of the things may have behaved like the sand (no changes) and others were behaving more like the sugar (got smaller--maybe dissolved?)
This got us all thinking about how we can further prove what we're thinking about how things dissolve or not...so we pulled out some scales to gather some data.
It looks like when something "disappears," it's still there as the weight data shows us this!
SUGAR: It seems as if the sugar looked different than before. It looks like the sugar got smaller. We're thinking this means it dissolves. But we keep thinking it might have gone else where, too, since we can't really see it.
DIRTY WATER: Whoah. There is so much going on with the dirty water that we don't really know what is still there. Sadly, looking at this didn't really help us identify anything. We don't really know what is still there, but are thinking some of the things may have behaved like the sand (no changes) and others were behaving more like the sugar (got smaller--maybe dissolved?)
This got us all thinking about how we can further prove what we're thinking about how things dissolve or not...so we pulled out some scales to gather some data.
It looks like when something "disappears," it's still there as the weight data shows us this!
Next steps...
To use all this evidence to really figure out what it means for a substance to dissolve and help us figure out what's in the dirty water we attempted to clean!
To use all this evidence to really figure out what it means for a substance to dissolve and help us figure out what's in the dirty water we attempted to clean!