States of matter: every pair's ice cube melting time charted live in a shared Google Sheet.

Year 4 are investigating whether temperature changes how fast ice melts. The teacher prepares jugs of water at about 10°C, 20°C, 30°C and 40°C. Each pair pours 200 ml from one jug into a clear cup, reads its temperature with a thermometer, drops in one ice cube from the same tray and times it with a stopwatch until no ice is left; the pairs with the coldest water start first, because theirs takes longest. In a shared Google Sheet, opened on school accounts, pairs type their temperature and their time in seconds into a row named by table number, and a scatter chart on the board gains a dot for every result. The class watches the dots step downwards as the water gets warmer, and the teacher asks why the dots at one temperature do not sit on top of each other. Children suggest reasons, such as stirring or a bigger cube, and agree one rule to tighten the test. The class then uses the chart to predict the time at 25°C, three pairs test it under the new rule while the rest watch the dots land, and every child writes a conclusion using two results from the chart.

Tools: Google Sheets Nine ideas for your own version in Generate