In this activity, students explore a range of common household substances to determine if they have the properties of a solid, a liquid or both.
By the end of this activity, students should be able to:
- conduct a series of tests to identify the properties of solids and liquids
- record observations in a table
- use these results to classify each test substance as a Newtonian fluid or a non-Newtonian fluid.
Download the Word file for:
- introduction/background notes
- what you need
- what to do
- discussion questions
- extension ideas
- classifying liquids.
Nature of science
Scientists gain understanding by systematically observing and describing things. From these observations, they look for patterns and use these to make explanations.
