A student places a rock on a balance to find out how much matter is in it. Which property of the rock is the balance measuring?

A student slowly lowers a small stone into a cup of water, and the water level rises. What does the rise in the water level show about the stone?

A student holds a magnet near a steel paper clip, an aluminum can, and a copper wire. Only the paper clip is pulled to the magnet. What does this test show?

A steel nail is cut into two shorter pieces. Only the bigger piece is still pulled toward a magnet.

A huge steel ship floats on the ocean, but a small pebble dropped into a bucket of water sinks straight to the bottom. What does this show about sinking and floating?

A student lowers a thermometer into a glass of water and waits, then reads 22 degrees Celsius on the scale. Which property of the water is the thermometer measuring?

Steel paper clips are mixed into a bowl of dry sand. Which property of the paper clips makes them easiest to separate from the sand?

A large foam ball and a much smaller metal ball are each placed on a balance. The small metal ball tips the balance down farther. What does this tell you?

A cook leaves a metal spoon and a wooden spoon in a pot of hot soup. Soon the metal handle feels hot, but the wooden handle still feels cool. What does this show about the metal?

In a circuit test, a bulb lights up when a copper wire is clipped into the gap but stays dark when a rubber band is clipped there instead. What property is being tested?

A student rubs a steel nail across a stick of chalk. The chalk gets scratched, but the nail does not. Which property of the two materials is the student comparing?

A rubber band bends easily and springs back into shape, while a wooden ruler of the same length hardly bends at all. Which property tells these two materials apart?

What is matter?

Which tool is best for measuring the mass of a small rock?

Volume is the amount of matter in an object.

Which unit is commonly used to measure the volume of a liquid in science class?

A large wooden log floats in a river while a small steel bolt sinks. What does this show?

Which object is most likely to be attracted to a magnet?

A student rolls a lump of clay into a tight ball and drops it into a tub of water, and it sinks. Using the very same lump, the student reshapes it into a hollow boat and sets it on the water, and it floats. What does this show?

A whole watermelon floats when placed in a backyard pool, but a small metal washer sinks straight to the bottom when dropped into the same pool. What does this show about sinking and floating?

An empty plastic bottle with its cap on floats easily in a bathtub. The same bottle filled all the way with water and capped sinks to the bottom. What changed?

A cork and a steel ball of about the same size are dropped into the same bowl of water. The cork floats on top, and the steel ball sinks to the bottom. What does this show?

A large plastic beach ball floats on top of a swimming pool, but a tiny glass marble sinks straight down when dropped into the same pool. What does this show?

A dry sponge floats on water, but the same sponge sinks after it becomes fully soaked with water. What caused the change?

A wooden raft loaded with heavy supply crates still floats across a lake, but a single small steel screw dropped in the water sinks right away. What does this show about sinking and floating?

Which property describes how something feels when touched?

A student drags a pointed tool across a metal plate. The tool leaves a scratch line on the plate, but the plate does not scratch the tool. What does this test show?

An opaque material lets most light pass through it.

Which material is transparent?

Which property is usually easiest to observe without any tools?

A magnet can help separate iron filings from sand.

Which property would be most useful for separating pebbles from sand with a screen?

Which method can separate sand from water?

Which material is a good conductor of electricity?

Rubber is often used as an insulator because it does not let electricity pass through easily.

A graduated cylinder is a tool used to measure the volume of a liquid.

Air is matter even though we cannot see it.

Which observation best shows that air takes up space?

Which tool would you use to measure the length of a pencil?

A solid rubber bouncy ball sinks when dropped in a pool, but an inflated basketball of a similar size floats easily. What does this show?