A fun, hands-on experiment with changing states of matter, that your students will love!

Year 3 Science ACARA tells us that students need to investigate how liquids and solids respond to changes in temperature and, like any task for young students, the best way to demonstrate this is through a fun hands-on activity.

No child can resist chocolate, so you have your lesson hook already!

Here are the steps I undertook recently to teach this concept to students using the Chocolate Experiment Flip Book available in the Year 3 Chemical Sciences pack.

1. We reviewed our prior knowledge about solids and liquids

After a discussion we undertook a quick cut, sort and paste to refresh ourselves on what these concepts were. We also reviewed the criteria for a solid and a liquid, whilst reviewing different states of matter.

2. We posed questions

We took our flip books out and cut and pasted them together (super quick and easy) and began to pose questions about turning a solid into a liquid. 

Teacher note: It's important for students to understand that science is about posing and answering questions and there is a Scientific Process we need to follow with any experiment (free posters available here).

3. We tried to predict what might happen during the experiment

We thought about what we knew about hot and cold, solids and liquids; and then tried to predict what might happen when solids were heated or cooled.

4. We undertook the experiment and observed what happened when we heated the solid

We melted the chocolate in the microwave (this took a few attempts to get the timing right - around 2 minutes) and then observed what happened to the solid. Was it a liquid? How do liquids behave? How do solids behave? We marked our observations against the criteria in the flip book. 

5. We then cooled the liquid and observed what happened.

Teacher note: spray some oil on to the ice cube tray before pouring the melted chocolate in, it will come away much easier after it has frozen. 

6. We recorded our observations

While the chocolate was freezing we decorated our flip books and practised writing our observations using key scientific terms. 

7. We examined the results of our experiment

We looked closely at the results of our experiment and made some observations about how the state of matter changed from solid to liquid (with some students eating the experiment afterwards!).

8. We concluded our experiment

We finished our experiment by concluding what we had found about about solids and liquids, how we knew this to be true and how we can communicate our findings in writing. 

Teacher note: this is where you can use the vocabulary cards that come in the pack to help students with their writing. Make a Science Word Wall on one of your walls in the classroom and encourage students to come to the wall to write down the key terms and use them in their written response. 

You can find the flip book used in this experiment, full teacher instructions, posters, worksheets and more flip book experiments in the Year 3 Chemical Science pack.

There are free Scientific Method Posters available here.