Subtopic: Properties of Matter

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Resource	Grade Level	Media Type
Atmospheric Pressure Did you know that air has weight? This illustrated essay from the NOVA Web site explores conditions that affect air density and atmospheric pressure.	6-12	HTML Document
Bend, Twist and Break: Beyond the Laboratory Dr. Chris Muhlstein explains that when scientists study fracture surfaces from controlled experiments to understand the resulting shapes and features, they can use their understanding to deduce what happened when they were not around to see the material fail or break. Further they can predict what will have to a larger or smaller piece of material under stress. This process is how scientists and engineers translate a lab experiment into a design for an airplane, bridge or even a bike frame.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Bend, Twist and Break: Breaking Glass Dr. Chris Muhlstein explains that researchers learn about the scientific basis for failure of materials by running experiments in the lab, using a simple shape like a glass rod to calculate the strength of material and predict its failure. The same tests can be done at the micro and nano scale using tiny specimens. Students can run a similar experiment with a bar of chocolate.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Bend, Twist and Break: Fracture Surfaces Dr. Chris Muhlstein explains that fracture surfaces can reveal how and why a material has failed. An image of a fracture surface has features or shapes that we can use to understand where a material failed and why. Scientists use an optical microscope or a scanning electron microscope to read a fracture surface at high magnifications, much like we read maps to find our way.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Bend, Twist and Break: The Bridge Dr. Chris Muhlstein explains that the arrangement of atoms in a material determines the properties. He drops an iPod to illustrate how the arrangement of atoms can protect it from damage; he narrates footage of the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the 1940s to show how the deformation of materials can cause the collapse of a structure.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Breaking Things on Purpose *Materials such as metals (aluminum, iron, copper, etc.), ceramics (silicon carbide, porcelain) or polymers (milk jugs made of polyethylene) are tested by scientists and engineers to reveal certain mechanical properties such as the maximum stress a material can withstand. The stress at which a material breaks is a measure of its strength. In this lesson you will be testing the strength of a delicious material you know as chocolate!	9-12	Lesson Plan
Buoyancy Basics This illustrated demonstration from the NOVA Web site explains the concepts of buoyancy and density by showing what happens when different kinds of wood blocks are dropped in water.	3-8	HTML Document
Buoyancy Brainteasers: Balloon-in-Car Puzzler This interactive brainteaser from the NOVA Web site challenges you to explain the behavior of a helium-filled balloon in a moving car.	3-8	HTML Interactive
Buoyancy Brainteasers: Boat-in-Pool Puzzler This interactive brainteaser from the NOVA Web site challenges you to figure out what happens to the water level when a rock is resting in a boat and when it is submerged in water.	3-8	HTML Interactive
Buoyancy Brainteasers: Buoyancy Question This interactive brainteaser from the NOVA Web site challenges you to figure out what causes an object to sink.	3-8	HTML Interactive
Cooking with Sugar Find out about the chemistry of candy and how sugar reacts at different temperatures to become fudge, caramel, lollipops, and more in this interactive activity adapted from the Exploratorium.	5-8	Flash Interactive
Density and Buoyancy: Experimenting with Club Soda In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, the cast discovers that gas-filled bubbles act like life jackets for raisins, making them buoyant.	K-8	QuickTime Video
Density and Buoyancy: Making Eggs Float Why does an egg float in salt water? Learn about density and buoyancy in this video segment adapted from ZOOM.	K-8	QuickTime Video
Density and Buoyancy: Mixing Hot and Cold Water Watch warm water float on top of cold water in this video segment adapted from ZOOM.	K-8	QuickTime Video
Density and Buoyancy: Pouring Air into Water This video segment adapted from ZOOM offers a clever demonstration of buoyancy by showing how to pour a cup of air into a cup filled with water.	K-8	QuickTime Video
Density and Buoyancy: Testing Liquids Will a grape float in oil? Will a metal nut sink in corn syrup? Watch as the ZOOM cast tests the buoyancy of a variety of liquids and objects.	K-8	QuickTime Video
Diamonds: The Science Behind the Sparkle This illustrated essay from the NOVA Web site explains why the atomic structure of a diamond slows down light and produces a sparkle more brilliant than from any other colorless substance.	6-12	HTML Document
Disappearing Milk A magician pours milk into a glass, but when he turns the glass upside down, nothing comes out. How does he do it? Discover the science behind the "magic" in this video adapted from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.	4-12	Flash Interactive
Discovering Air Our understanding about the air we breathe has changed dramatically through time. This illustrated timeline from the NOVA Web site tracks the changing thought on air and the creation of the Periodic Table of the Elements.	6-12	HTML Document
Dissolving Salts in Water In this interactive activity adapted from Iowa State University, design and carry out an experiment: dissolve salts in water, see how different ionic compounds produce different reactions, and observe the resulting changes in temperature.	8-12	Flash Interactive
Dust Explosion In these videos adapted from the Journal of Chemical Education, observe how a material that is usually hard to ignite becomes very flammable when its particles are suspended in air.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Elements of Steel This resource from the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Web site, which contains both an interactive activity and illustrated text, looks at the composition of different types of steel and their impact on technology.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Floating and Sinking: Hot Air Balloons Why do hot air balloons float? This resource from the NOVA Web site offers a series of interactive activities that illustrates the physics of hot air balloons.	6-12	Shockwave Interactive
Food or Fuel? The Chemistry and Efficiency of Producing Biodiesel	9-12	Lesson Plan
Gas Properties In this interactive simulation adapted from University of Colorado’s Physics Education Technology project, change parameters and discover how the properties of a gas vary in relation to each other.	6-12	Java Web Start Interactive
Global Warming and The Greenhouse Effect This video excerpt from Race to Save the Planet discusses the greenhouse effect and global warming.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Global Warming: Beyond Fossil Fuels Martin Hoffert, professor of physics at New York University, discusses global warming and alternative energies in this interview from the NOVA/FRONTLINE Web site.	6-12	HTML Document
Global Warming: Carbon Dioxide and the Greenhouse Effect This video segment adapted from NOVA/FRONTLINE demonstrates the physical property of carbon dioxide that causes the greenhouse effect.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Global Warming: Graphs Tell the Story Examine these graphs from the NOVA/ FRONTLINE Web site to see dramatic increases in the temperature of Earth's surface and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.	6-12	HTML Document
Global Warming: The Physics of the Greenhouse Effect This video segment adapted from NOVA/FRONTLINE examines the greenhouse effect, its role in keeping Earth habitable, and the industrial changes that have led to an increase in the planet's average temperature.	6-12	QuickTime Video
Helium Is Boring In this video adapted from the National Science Center, observe a demonstration to discover how helium gas is inert and hydrogen gas is reactive.	3-8	QuickTime Video
How Hard is Chocolate? Hardness is probably a concept you are well familiar with. You already know that certain materials are harder than others; in fact, you prove it everyday when you chew your food and your teeth don’t break (because your teeth are harder than the foods you chew). Hardness can be defined as a material's ability to resist a change in shape. Modern hardness testers take a well-defined shape and press it into a material with a certain force, observing the indent it leaves in the material when it is removed. In this lesson, you will be performing hardness testing on different bars of chocolate.	9-12	Lesson Plan
How Structure Can Affect Properties Through Phase Changes Structure-Property Relationships	6-8	Lesson Plan
Lifting with Air How can you lift a heavy metal table using air? In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, cast members succeed in lifting a table using their own breath and a few plastic bags.	K-8	QuickTime Video
Mechanical Properties of Chocolate: How Hard is your Chocolate? Hardness is probably a concept you are well familiar with. You already know that certain materials are harder than others; in fact, you prove it everyday when you chew your food and your teeth don’t break (because your teeth are harder than the foods you chew). Hardness can be defined as a material's ability to resist a change in shape. Modern hardness testers take a well-defined shape and press it into a material with a certain force, observing the indent it leaves in the material when it is removed. In this lesson, you will be performing hardness testing on different bars of chocolate.	6-8	Lesson Plan
Mechanical Properties of Chocolate: How Strong is your Chocolate? *Materials such as metals (aluminum, iron, copper, etc.), ceramics (silicon carbide, porcelain) or polymers (milk jugs made of polyethylene) are tested by scientists and engineers to reveal certain mechanical properties such as the maximum stress a material can withstand. The stress at which a material breaks is a measure of its strength. In this lesson you will be testing the strength of a delicious material you know as chocolate!	6-8	Lesson Plan
Mystery Mud: Exploring Changes in States of Matter Join a group of middle-school students on a visit to a laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where they experiment with "mystery mud" and learn about the relationships between magnetism, particle motion, and changes in the state of matter.	3-8	QuickTime Video
Nature's Pharmacy In this interactive activity from NOVA, learn about chemicals in nature that are used in medicine.	3-12	Flash Interactive
Particulate Nature of Matter In this interactive activity from ChemThink, examine the basic properties of matter at an atomic level and consider how various atoms affect the way a substance behaves.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Penn State University Combustion Lab Tour In this video, a fuels science professor tours a Combustion Lab where a team is investigating renewable, advanced and clean burning fuels. Overall, the researchers are interested in power, emissions, and performance.	9-12	Flash Interactive
Periodic Table of the Elements This interactive periodic table developed for Teachers' Domain provides detailed information about the chemical properties of elements and illustrates the electron configurations that determine those characteristics.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Snapshot of US Energy Use This video segment adapted from NOVA/FRONTLINE looks at American energy consumption and the resulting production of greenhouse gases.	3-12	QuickTime Video
Snowflake Physics Explore the science behind snowflake formation by examining water molecule structure and other conditions that affect snowflake growth in this interactive activity adapted from SnowCrystals.com.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Stories in the Ice Take a journey back through time, on the NOVA/FRONTLINE Web site, using ice cores to learn about Earth's climatic history, including evidence of global warming and nuclear activity.	6-12	HTML Document
Structure-Property Relationships Structure and property changes of water.	9-12	Lesson Plan
Structure and Property Changes of Water Dr. Chris Muhlstein explains the challenge of studying materials that are too small to see with the naked eye. The technique some scientists use to observe individual atoms is similar to the technique of using touch to find out the size, shape, and location of objects in a dark room. By using a very small, sharp sensor, scientists can create an image of atoms.	6-12	QuickTime Video
The Structure of Metal In this interactive activity from the NOVA Web site, animations explain different aspects of the properties of metal.	6-12	Flash Interactive
Surface Tension: Making Paper Clips Float In this video segment, the ZOOM cast relies on the surface tension of water to make paper clips float.	K-8	QuickTime Video
Using Nanoscience to Understand the Properties of Matter Atoms and molecules are the basic units of matter. The properties of matter that you can see and touch are dictated by the kinds of atoms and bonds that make it up. But if atoms are too small to see, how can scientists figure out their properties? The video shows some special tools that allow scientists to take pictures of and make changes to very tiny or nanoscale materials.	6-12	QuickTime Video
What is Matter? This video/animation defines matter, mass, and volume using water as an example. The size, electrical charge and location of the subatomic particles of matter are described. Different types of atoms are called elements and organized in the periodic table. What happens to the properties of atoms when they exist alone or together?	6-12	QuickTime Video
Why Do Snowflakes Come in So Many Shapes and Sizes? In this media-rich lesson, students learn the physics of snowflake formation. They build an apparatus to grow their own snow crystals and explore how the forces that act on water molecules result in the hexagonal shapes of snowflakes.	6-8	Lesson Plan
Your Carbon Diet Find out how much energy you use and some ways to conserve in this interactive activity from the NOVA/FRONTLINE Web site.	3-12	Shockwave Interactive

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Subtopic: Properties of Matter