This week, Year 5 have been learning about solvents (liquids), solutes (solids) and solutions (mixture of liquid and solid). At the start of the week, we looked at the properties of different materials and groups different materials based on their shared properties. We linked this back to our knowledge of solids, liquids and gases. Then, we moved onto the process of dissolving and learnt about how solutes are dissolved into solvents to create a solution.
Today and yesterday, the children investigated whether temperature had an affect on the rate of which a solid dissolves. The children had two beakers (one filled with warm water and one filled with cold water). Then, we tipped one teaspoon of sugar into the warm beaker and timed how long it took the sugar to dissolve. The children understood that the sugar looked transparent in the liquid, however it was still there, but had now created a solution. After recording our results, we completed the same process with the cold water.
The children concluded that the warmer the water, the faster the solid dissolves. This is because the water molecules vibrate faster in warm water, causing the solid to dissolve faster.
