Matter (At about the 2nd grade level)

What is matter?

By Moira Whitehouse, PhD

Matter includes everything around us--• our couch, our bed, our computer

• our food and our drinks• our family and our dog or cat

• the grass and the trees

• the Sun and the Moon

• all the planets• everything in our Universe

Yes!

Everything

Everything

Everything

Matter on Earth is usually in one of three states.

solids

• Keep their shape unless they are broken

• Do not flow or pour

We know when matter is a solid because solids:

liquids

We can tell when matter is a liquid because liquids:

• Do not keep their own shape; they take the shape of the container they are in.

And...liquids flow or pour.

Oil being poured on a salad

Then what about sand, sugar and salt? Don’t they pour, flow and take the shape of the container they are in?

If you magnify sand or sugar, you can see that they are not liquids. Sand, salt, and sugar are made up of very small particles that have a definite shape .

Child blowing air (a gas) into a balloon.

gasThen there is that third state of matter:

A balloon or a bubble are just containers that hold a gas. For us that gas is usually air.

There are other gases besides the gases in air. These balloons contain a gas called helium which is lighter than air.

Air like all gases takes the shape of its containerand expands to fill its container.

Most gases including the gases in air are invisible—you simply cannot seem them.

A jar of air

However, you do know air is there when it moves things such as this windmill.

Wind—moving air– causes this windmill to rotate.

Or when you use the gas in your lungs to blow out a candle.

Can you name the three states of matter?

Bubbles hold an invisible gas called water vapor

Can you tell the difference between these three states?