On their first try, some of the water spilled, says Sherry, so they had to start over, but in the end, their experiment was a success. Each container becomes a model for a "rock." The next step for Sherry and her students was to carefully measure how much water they could pour into each container. In the project, the different-sized beans represent different sizes of rock particles. To build their model, the kids filled one plastic container with large dried beans and another plastic container with small dried beans.
"Both of the kids are interested in rocks, and the techniques of Science Buddies' porosity activity seemed fairly simple," said Sherry, "so I thought it would work with my young nephew." That's what Sherry Smith, a Science Buddies mom, decided to do when she was looking for a fun science activity that would appeal to both her 10-year-old daughter and 4-year-old nephew.
Porosity is a concept that may be hard to imagine, but with the quick and easy How Particles Affect Porosity science activity, students can make a model of a rock to observe firsthand what porosity means and how it works. Science Activities Mean Fun for the Whole Family When the particles of a rock are large, there may be more space between them because they don't fit together as tightly. Such a rock is defined as not very porous. When the particles of a rock are small, they may be packed together closely with very little space between them. Porosity is the word we use to talk about the volume of empty space in an object compared to the total volume of the object. Some rocks are more like a sponge than others though. Surprised? It may be easier to see the pockets in sponges since most sponges are covered with holes, but if you toss a pumice stone in water, it will float-because it has many pockets of empty space, just like a sponge! What do rocks and sponges have in common? Rocks may be hard, and sponges may be soft, but both have pockets of empty space.
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