DENSITY BASICS
Clue: The amount of mass in a certain volume.
What is density?
Clue: An object less dense than water generally does this.
What is floats?
Clue: The least dense substance belongs here in a density tower.
What is the top?
Clue: Explain why vegetable oil floats above water.
Because vegetable oil is less dense than water.
Clue: A substance floats on water. Its density must generally be on this side of 1.0 g/mL.
What is less than 1.0 g/mL?
Clue: The approximate density of water used in these lessons.
What is 1.0 g/mL?
Clue: An object more dense than water generally does this.
What is sinks?
Clue: The most dense substance belongs here.
What is the bottom?
Clue: Explain why honey goes below water.
Because honey is more dense than water.
Clue: A screw passed through every liquid in the seven-layer column and stopped at the bottom. This is why.
What is the screw was denser than all of the liquids?
Clue: These two quantities are compared when discussing density.
What are mass and volume?
Clue: A plastic bead floats on alcohol. Compared with the alcohol, the bead has this type of density.
What is lower/less density?
Clue: Olive oil, water and honey are placed together. This is the correct top-to-bottom order.
What is olive oil → water → honey?
Clue: Explain how a density column helps a scientist compare substances.
It shows their relative densities by where they form layers; less dense substances are higher and more dense substances are lower.
Clue: A rubber ball has density 0.92. Oil is 0.90 and dish soap is 1.03. The ball belongs here.
What is between the oil and dish soap?
Clue: Two common units for density used in the notes.
What are g/mL and g/cm³?
Clue: Wood floats on water, but metal sinks. Of the three, this has the greatest density.
What is the metal?
Clue: X = .95, Y = .75, Z = 1.10, W = 1.20. This is their top-to-bottom order.
What is Y → X → Z → W?
Clue: A ball floats on water but sinks in oil. Explain everything that can be concluded about its density without knowing its actual number.
The ball is less dense than water but more dense than oil, so its density must fall somewhere between the density of oil and the density of water.
Clue: An unknown liquid has the smallest density number of all liquids in a tower. This is where it belongs.
What is at the top?
Clue: What is the formula for density?
Clue: What is the density of an object with a mass of 100 g and a volume of 25 mL?
What is 4 g/mL?
Clue: What is the density of water?
What is 1.00 g/mL
Clue: What is the unit of density for a liquid?
What is g/mL?
A mystery object is placed into a three-layer column:
Oil = 0.90
Water = 1.00
Dish soap = 1.03
It passes through the oil but stops above the water.
Question: What range must its density be in, and how do you know?
Its density must be greater than 0.90 but less than 1.00 g/mL. It sinks through the oil because it is denser than oil, but it floats on the water because it is less dense than water.