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Marvellous Materials - Splish Splash
Objectives
To suggest how to test an idea about whether a material is suitable for a particular purpose (waterproofing).
Resources
Scissors | Glue | Pieces of fabric such as: cotton, nylon, terry towelling, polythene or wool | 📄 Absorbency worksheet
Vocabulary
cloth | cotton | material | nylon | soak | terry towelling | towel | water | wool
Today's Lesson
Introduction
Discuss with your student what a towel is for.
Ask: ‘Does it matter what material a towel is made from?’
Show your student a collection of fabrics and ask them which one would be good for a towel. Listen to their answers and ask them to explain their reasons.
If they choose terry towelling, discuss why.
Say: ‘It looks like a towel but what makes it a good material for a towel?’
Ask them where the water from their hands goes when they dry them on a towel. They should feel the towel before and after use and notice that it becomes damp.
Ask: ‘What makes it damp?’
Main Activity
Ask your student for ideas about how to test different kinds of cloth to find out if they are good towels.
For example, they could dip their hands in water and then try drying them on different cloths.
Ask: ‘How can you make this fair for each cloth?’
To make this test fair, for example, they could:
- Use the same size cloth.
- Rub their hands once with each one and compare how wet or dry their hands are afterwards.
Ask: ‘Which cloth gave you the driest hands?’
Another way of testing the cloth would be for your student to wash their hands and then try one of the cloths as a towel and repeat this for each cloth.
Use the 📄 Absorbency worksheet for recording the results of the investigation to find the best cloth for a towel. They could try the different cloths as described above or they might think of a different way of comparing them.
Discuss how to use the chart and the meanings of the face symbols:
🙂= This material worked well.
😐 = This material worked quite well.
🙁= This material did not work well.
Consolidate
Ask your student if all materials soak up water.
Ask:
- Does nylon soak up water?
- Does polythene soak up water?
- How do you know?
Aim to draw out in the discussion that water does not disappear and that a towel dries our skin by soaking up water.
Ask your student to think about how well the different types of cloth worked as towels. Which ones did they award a ‘smiley face’? Discuss how these were different from the other cloths.
Ask: ‘What do you think makes them good for soaking up water? Why do some materials not soak up water very well?’