Episode 24 – Crystal Paint

First, you will need to download the Crystal Paint lab manual.

Look around you. What kind of things are in your surroundings? Although I don’t know where you are or what you’re looking at, I can say this next statement with 100% confidence: everything around you is made of matter.

Matter is any substance that has mass (or weight) and takes up space by having volume. There are three main states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. Besides the physical appearance of these different types of matter, we can also tell the difference by looking at the particles that make up the object or substance.

Solids: anything with a fixed size and shape. Solid particles are densely packed together in a fixed shape.
Liquid: anything that flows out and changes shape to fit its container. Liquid particles are packed together BUT their shape can change.

Gas: anything that changes its shape and size to fit its (closed) container. Gas particles are far apart and are randomly shaped. The air that we are breathing is a gas.

Would you believe me if I told you these states above can change into different states? That a gas can become a solid or a liquid can become a gas? This activity will demonstrate just how that can happen!

Throughout the 1900s, many individual discoveries were made that constructed what we now know as the atom. Atoms are the basis of matter! They are the tiny particles that make up all the solids, liquids, and gases in our world and beyond.

Saskatchewan Curriculum Connection: MC5.1: Investigate the characteristics and physical properties of materials in solid, liquid, and gaseous states of matter.