Year 4 can sort materials into three states and now ask why the states behave so differently. Each child first draws what they think the smallest bits of ice, liquid water and water as a gas look like. In pairs on a tablet, they open PhET's States of Matter: Basics and, copying the teacher on the board, switch its thermometer from kelvin to degrees Celsius. They choose water, press Solid and watch the molecules shake on the spot in a fixed pattern. They slide the heater up and hold it until the pattern breaks and the molecules tumble past each other at the bottom of the container, then keep heating until they fly apart and fill it. Pairs then write a prediction for each of three questions and test it: will cooling the gas bring the liquid back, do the molecules themselves get bigger as they warm, and do oxygen and neon behave in the same way as water? The teacher circulates and asks pairs to show on screen the evidence for each answer. Children redraw their three pictures and write what changes between the states and what stays the same.
Tools: PhET Simulations Nine ideas for your own version in Generate
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