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Our Driving Question

Slide A

Can we make something new that was not there before?

(Can we?)

How can we revise our driving question to make it better?

Discuss with your class

Revise our driving question. Display slide A. Say, We started off with the question, “Can we make something new that wasn’t there before?” Use the following dialog to consider revising this question.

Say, It sounds like the answer to our question right now is both “yes” and “no.” So maybe we need to tweak the question a bit. Many of you wrote how and why questions for the Driving Question Board (DQB). Why don’t we make this question into a how or why question? How could we change it? Your classes should converge on something similar to: How can we make something new that was not there before?

Say, Several of you said that we didn’t make brand new matter, but I think we all agree that the gas was not something that was there to start with--it was produced when we put the bath bomb in water. How did that happen? How do you get gas bubbles from a solid bath bomb and water? Let’s try to figure this out!

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What’s next?

Slide B

We figured out that the gas in the bath bomb bubbles comes from what is already there.

What exactly do you think is in a bath bomb?

How can we find out?

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Observations: Ingredients of a Bath Bomb

Slide C

Wonder

Notice

Add what you notice and wonder about the ingredients and your chart to your notebook.

Ingredients of Bath Bombs

On Your Own

Distribute the ingredient lists for homemade bath bombs. Also display slide C, which shows the ingredients for a store-bought bath bomb along with the list of ingredients for several homemade bath bombs. Ask students to tape the Bath Bomb Recipes into their notebooks and make a two-column chart to record their noticings and wonderings about these.

Students record observations. Ask students to make some observations about the ingredients. This should be a quick scan of the lists to see what they have in common. One thing they should notice is that the store-bought bath bomb has ingredients that are similar to the homemade bath bombs. Moving forward, we will focus on the recipes of the homemade bath bombs.

Once students have had a few minutes to look over the recipes, ask students to share some of their observations.

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Plan an Investigation

Slide D

Discuss with your class

Now that we know the names of these ingredients what do we still want to know about them?

How can we use the ingredients to help us figure out how the bath bomb makes gas bubbles?

What could we eventually investigate using these ingredients?

Ask students what we should do with this information. Display slide D. Now that the class knows the names of the ingredients, refer students to the questions on the slides to figure out what additional information they want to know about these ingredients to help figure out how bath bombs form bubbles.

Now that we know the names of these ingredients, what do we want to know about them?
How can we use the ingredients to help us figure out how the bath bomb makes gas bubbles?
What could we eventually investigate using these ingredients?

Allow students to discuss this with a partner, and then ask for a few responses from the class. Students should suggest looking at each ingredient separately. Students may also suggest putting all of these ingredients by themselves in water to see if any gas bubbles form.

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Conduct an Investigation

Slide E

Title a new notebook: Observations of bath bomb ingredients
Create a data table to list each ingredient you will test.
Observe each ingredient and record data that would help us tell them apart.

Observations of bath bomb ingredients

Be prepared to share these with the whole class.

On Your Own

Decide what data to collect. Work with students to decide what data to collect as they observe each of the ingredients. Work together to create a data table. Prompt them by saying, If we look at the different ingredients by themselves, what kind of data do we want to collect? We should decide as a class what kind of data we want, and then let’s set up a data table to use. Display slide E.

As a class, agree to collect data such as the color, smell, how it feels, how it moves in the cup, etc. Some students may suggest weighing the sample and recording the volume or how much they have of each. Students should set up a table in their notebooks to record these data.

Distribute materials to student groups. Each group of students should have a small sample of each of these ingredients:

baking soda
table salt
citric acid
powdered lemonade mix (sugar-free)
powdered lemonade mix (non-sugar-free)
Epsom salts
olive oil
coconut oil
sugar
corn starch

Students record observations of each ingredient. Encourage students to record observations that will help them tell the ingredients apart later. This will encourage students to be detailed in their observations and to focus on accurately recording the characteristics and properties of the ingredients. Students will learn what a property is later in day 2 of this lesson.

Monitor groups as they make observations. As students are making observations, visit each group and encourage students to be detailed in their observations.✱ When needed, prompt students to add more detail so they can tell the ingredients apart.

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What did we notice about the ingredients?

Slide F

Discuss with your class

What did we notice?

Did we find any evidence that would help us figure out how the bath bomb produced gas bubbles?

Bring the class back together as one group. When the students are finished with their observations, display slide F. Say, What were some of your observations--what did you notice? Did you find any evidence that would help us figure out how the bath bomb produces gas bubbles?

Share patterns. Guide students to note patterns and categorize these using words/phrases that scientists also use to describe similarities and differences around different kinds of characteristics.

Students should note these observations as they collect their data. The ingredients in the bath bomb (that we had to start with) have characteristics that we can use to tell them apart (and also to determine what each one is). Say, Let’s add examples of all the characteristics we could use to help identify our ingredients. We will write each characteristic on a separate sticky note and stick them on the Word Wall. Are there examples we can add now?

Let students suggest, write, and post the examples. Listen for these characteristics students bring up after observing the ingredients:

Some have different colors (color).
Texture (whether it is granular or powdery).
Some have a noticeable scent/smell, but others do not (odor).
One turned to liquid when touched (it went above its melting point of 76 degrees), while others didn’t change phase.
They are liquid or solid at room temperature (different states of matter at room temperature).
The liquids flow differently (viscosity).
Mass.
How much space it takes up (volume).

You may notice that students add characteristics that are not properties such as mass, volume, and/or texture. At this point allow these words to be added to the Word Wall. We will sort through all of these words to see which of these characteristics are properties on day 2.

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What else should we do with these ingredients to figure out what causes these gas bubbles to appear?
What should we measure when we do this?

On a note card, answer the following question and turn it in as you leave class:

Slide G

Exit Ticket

We know a lot about the individual ingredients now, and we noticed that none of the ingredients for the bath bombs are gases.

On Your Own

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Navigation

Slide H

Think back to what you recorded on your exit ticket at the end of the last class.

The first question was: What else should we do to try to figure out what causes these gas bubbles to appear?

What should we do next with these ingredients?

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Investigating Ingredients in Water

Side I

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Investigating Ingredients in Water

Side J

Record your two ingredients in your notebook.

Investigating Ingredients Mixed in Water

Ingredients my group tested:

Display slide J. Have students record which substance they are assigned in their science notebooks. Adjust this slide if you are using different groupings.

Solicit ideas for data to collect. Help students identify data that we should collect with the following prompts:

What types of data in this investigation are important for us to keep track of?
What are some different ways we could keep track of this data?
What kinds of things have we kept track of in our other investigations? Are those also important to keep track of here?

Students may offer several ideas. Accept all and discuss as a class how to keep track of them in a data table. Some suggestions students may make might include, temperature, mass, color change, thickness change, etc. ✱

Solicit ideas for recording data. Work together as a class to determine a way to organize their data, keeping in mind that they will add the rest of the ingredients when groups share their data with the class. Draw their suggested data table on the board. Tell students they should make a data table in their notebooks also to keep track of the data they collect for the ingredients they test. ✱

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Investigating Ingredients in Water

Side K

Record your two ingredients in your notebook.
Record your observations and mass measurements.

Investigating Ingredients Mixed in Water

Ingredients my group tested:

Follow the steps with a partner to carry out your investigation.

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Making Sense

Slide L

When you combined the substances with water, what did you observe?

How does that behavior compare with a bath bomb placed in water?

Report the results. Display slide L. Ask a few students to report what they saw happen to each ingredient when it was added to water. They can bring their labeled cups up to the front of the room and line them up on the front table as they report their results for other groups to see, if you wish. Ask students to also compare how this was the same or different from bath bombs interacting with water. Encourage students to add ingredients that they did not test to their data table. Each student should have data for each ingredient after everyone has shared.

Make sense of the data. Students will bring up that some of the ingredients dissolved in water. Ask students what it means to dissolve.

Students should agree from what they learned in previous years that when something dissolves in water, the water can be evaporated off and the original substance will still be there. (This should be something that was learned in 5th grade. However, if your students haven’t learned it yet, you may wish to take the time to ask how to collect evidence supporting the concept that when something dissolves in water, we can let the water evaporate and get the original substance back.) An example dialog is shown below.

Add the word “dissolve” to the Word Wall with the definition: when a solid dissolves in a liquid, the solid breaks apart into particles too small to see and it completely mixes with the liquid. While dissolving in liquids is not the only example, it fits our purposes here. You can return and add details to this definition as students perform additional experiments.

Introduce or reinforce scientific vocabulary. Say to students, We have learned that some of the bath bomb ingredients dissolve and some do not. Does anyone know the word we use to describe if something dissolves when added to a particular liquid? If something has the ability to dissolve, it is soluble, and if it does not dissolve and is not soluble, then it can be described as insoluble. If something only partially dissolves and looks cloudy or murky we can describe it as partially soluble. ✱ Ask students to name some things that were soluble, insoluble, and partially soluble in water. Add these terms to the Word Wall.

Say, Solubility in water is what we have been talking about, and that is another characteristic. Can someone write this on a sticky note and put it on our Word Wall?

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How can we identify different ingredients?

Slide M

You will receive a data table of the ingredients in the bath bombs. DO NOT tape it into your notebook yet. Wait for further directions.

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How can we identify different ingredients?

Slide N

The first two columns are the common and scientific names of the different bath bomb ingredients.

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How can we identify different ingredients? substances?

Slide O

substances

Cross out the word ingredient with one line and add the word substance underneath.

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How can we identify different ingredients? substances?

Slide P

Add an annotation to show the last 2 ingredients have multiple substances in them.

substances

Multiple substances

{

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substances

Multiple substances

{

How can we identify different substances?

Slide Q

The third column lists the melting point for each ingredient.

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How can we identify different substances?

Slide R

Record what temperature of the room is here.

Record what the state of matter each ingredient is here.

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How can we identify different substances?

Slide S

Fill in the next column using observations about the solubility for each ingredient.

Add solubility data to the table. Display slide S. Tell students to use their data and observations from the Observing the Ingredients of Bath Bombs activity to complete a new column in Bath Bomb Ingredient Data. Have them label the first blank column “Soluble in Water?” Give them 2-3 minutes to add their data. Encourage them to enter “yes,” “no,” or “partially” in the column for each ingredient.

Have students share what they recorded to ensure that everyone in the class agrees upon which substances were water soluble and which ones were not.

Sort the characteristics of bath bombs that are properties on the Word Wall. Bring students’ attention to the Word Wall. Say, We have added a lot of different characteristics for the different substances in our bath bomb. We are trying to figure out where these gas bubbles come from when the bath bomb is added to water. I heard some of you suggest that something in the bath bomb turns into the gas bubbles. In order to figure this out we will need to really keep track of when something changes and what it was like before and after that change. We can use these characteristics to tell whether the baking soda is still baking soda, and the coconut oil is still coconut oil or it has changed. If a substance, or ingredient, changes then its characteristics will change. But for us to be able to tell if a substance changes, we need to figure out which characteristics are always true for a substance. For example, some characteristics like “it weighs 5 grams” or “it is spread across the table” are not always true. But others like the color of baking soda are always true. Let’s call these characteristics that are always true for a substance “properties.” Let’s take a few minutes to reflect on them and think about which ones would be more helpful in identifying a substance and which ones would be less helpful. Take a look at all the characteristics. Can we sort this list into things that we think are always true for a substance? Have students as a class sort the characteristics on the Word Wall into two groupings.

Group 1: Characteristics that are always the same for that substance. Those shown in bold are considered properties:

Some have different colors (color).
Some have a noticeable scent/smell, but others do not (odor).
One turned to liquid when touched (it went above its melting point of 76 degrees), while others didn’t change phase.
They are liquid or solid at room temperature (different states of matter at room temperature).
If it can dissolve in water (solubility in water).
The liquids flow differently (viscosity).

Group 2: Characteristics of a substance that are only sometimes true:

Mass
Volume
Shape
Texture

Introduce the term “property.” Say, These ways of describing characteristics of matter that don’t change are helpful for identifying what a substance is because they are constant for any sample of that substance, no matter the size of the sample. In scientific communities these characteristics are called “properties.” Add, “Properties: characteristics of a substance that do not change” on the Word Wall.

Prepare your notebook for the data table. Have students attach Bath Bomb Ingredient Data to their notebooks by taping along the left edge. They should fold the page if their notebook will not close flat. Have them title this data table and page “Bath Bomb Ingredient Property Data.”

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Progress Tracker

Slide T

What did we all figure out during this investigation, and how will this help us figure out what causes bath bombs to behave the way they do?

Add the table below to your Progress Tracker.
What question were we trying to figure out?
Record what you figured out and how you learned it.

Make sure you are in your Progress Tracker section.

Question

Progress Tracker

What I figured out

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On a note card, answer the following questions and turn it in as you leave class:

What else should we investigate about these substances or try to do using these substances?
What is one new question you have based on the investigation we did today?
What was one new idea you heard from a classmate?

Slide U

Exit Ticket

Wrapping up day 2. Display slide U. Ask students, You just listed some things you figured out on your Progress Tracker. How do these things help you figure out what is (or is not) producing the gas bubbles from the bath bomb? Students should respond with something like, “We know that there must be more than one ingredient that makes the gas bubbles because when we put each one on their own in the water, there were no gas bubbles. But, we don’t know which of the ingredients make the gas bubbles.”

Complete an exit ticket. Say to students, Use a notecard or scrap of paper to answer the questions on the slide before you leave. The questions for students are:

What else should we investigate about these substances or try to do using these substances?
What is one new question you have based on the investigation we did today?
What was one new idea you heard from a classmate?