Matter and its Properties
What is matter?
Anything that has mass and takes up space.
What is matter made of?
Tiny particles/atoms.
Name the three common states of matter.
Solid, liquid, and gas.
What does mass measure?
The amount of matter in an object.
Which state of matter is easiest to compress?
Gas.
Name two physical properties of matter.
Any two physical properties, such as colour, texture, hardness, mass, volume, or state.
What are particles?
Tiny pieces of matter that make up substances.
Which state has a definite shape and a definite volume?
A solid.
What does volume measure?
The amount of space an object or substance takes up.
Are particles in a solid moving or completely still?
They are moving; they vibrate in place.
If you crush a sugar cube into tiny crystals, has the sugar changed state? Explain your answer.
No. It is still a solid. Crushing changes its size and shape, but not its state of matter.
How are particles arranged in a solid?
They are packed closely together in a regular arrangement and vibrate in place.
Why does a liquid take the shape of its container?
The particles can move past one another, allowing the liquid to flow and take the shape of its container.
Two objects have the same volume but different masses. What does this tell you?
The objects have different densities because they have different masses in the same volume.
Why can a gas be compressed more easily than a liquid?
Gas particles are far apart, so a liquid takes the shape of its container because its particles can move past one another.
A metal spoon and a wooden spoon have the same shape. Name one physical property that could help you tell the materials apart.
Any suitable property, such as hardness, texture, flexibility, or thermal conductivity (how well a material transfers heat).
How does heating affect particle movement?
Heating gives particles more energy, so they move faster.
Describe what happens to particles when ice melts.
The particles gain energy, move more freely, and begin moving past one another as the solid becomes a liquid.
What is density, and how are mass and volume related to it?
Density describes how much mass is packed into a given volume. For the same volume, an object with more mass has a greater density.
What happens to the particles of a gas when the gas is compressed?
The particles are pushed closer together, reducing the spaces between them.
Two blocks look exactly alike and have the same colour and size. Explain how they could still be made of different materials using matter and its properties.
Different materials can share the same appearance and size but have different properties, such as mass, hardness, flexibility, or density.
Explain how the particle model helps us understand the differences between solids, liquids, and gases.
In solids, particles are tightly packed and vibrate in place. In liquids, particles stay close together but move past one another. In gases, particles are far apart and move freely.
A puddle disappears on a warm day. Explain what happens to the water particles.
The liquid water gains energy and evaporates. Its particles spread out into the air as water vapour.
Two blocks are the same size, but one has a greater mass. Which block is denser, and why?
The block with the greater mass is denser because both blocks occupy the same volume.
Someone sprays perfume at one end of a room. After a while, people at the other end can smell it. How does particle movement explain this?
Perfume particles move through the air and spread out in different directions until they reach people across the room.