Blog Post #13

 1. This week we learned about the idea of atoms taking up space and looked at why some materials are more or less dense. We found that the more dense an object is then there are more atoms in the smaller space causing it to be denser. This leaves little room for the atoms to move and as a result, causes a couple of changes that would normally not happen. We showed this through the M&M activity we did. The one with only water caused the dye particles to spread quickly and over a larger area. But when you added something like sugar which took up more area and space then there became less room for the dye particles to be able to spread and because of this would spread not as far and a lot more slowly then compared to the plate that had just water. 

4. I can apply what I learned today to create different activities to learn in my future teaching. For example, we mentioned it briefly in the lecture but the idea is that you could set up an area where students have to try and get from point a to point b as quickly as possible. Some of them just have to run straight there while some may have to avoid a couple of chairs and some have a lot of chairs in the way that they have to get past. This could show how many particles there are and how long it would take for students to be able to get to the other side if there are more particles in the way between them and the goal. 

5. One big question I have is why did salt make the dye turn into a streak and not have the same effect as the sugar did in the lab and slow it down? Another question I had was are there some particles that you could put into the water that would actually speed up the dye or does it only ever slow it down?