The ways of water

In this lab, we spent time playing with different materials to get a better sense of biological properties of water.  There were many various different materials we could have used including: salt, clay, metal, and sponge. Our job was to find out how these materials could create differences within the water. Again it helps to show the tangible effects of water even if it’s not visible. We then put the products into the water and saw how it affected the water. We then gave time to observe and record our results.

In this lab it connected to our water lectures because we talked about the different elements of water. We played with clay, salt, sand and sponges. Through these materials we saw covalent cohesion and adhesion bonds, which we learned in our lecture. We got to see how the bonds work after hearing about it in our lecture. With the clay we got to see cohesion and adhesion because the water stuck to itself, but it also stuck to the clay. It also changed the color of the water.

When we added the water to the pile of salt, the water immediately became murkier because as time went by, the salt began to dissolve as a result of the hydrogen bonds forming between the polar salt and water molecule which, tearing the salt particles apart. You could see it creating a bubble around and on top of the water due to surface tension. Although the pile was small the instant we poured water on it you could see the mass flow of the water through the salt.

This type of learning gave us a hands on approach and an opportunity to explain scientific things in regular human terms. It also gave us the chance to connect the scientific terms we learned during lecture and apply them to what we were looking at and discovering.

We chose the power of play. This connects perfectly with today’s experiment because we were allowed to choose which object or objects we wanted to manipulate the water with and we also got to choose what way we saw was best to manipulate it. There was a lot of freedom and room for play and experimentation. It allowed for learning outside the boundaries of what a professor might anticipate with an experiment with less freedom.