← Back to course
Matter Lab 6-8 / Week 01 / Bench Day
6/6
Week 01 · Everything Is Made of Something

Bench Day

Bench Day: Matter hunt
// Matter, mass, atoms and the big list of elements
⏱ about 20 min

Bench Day: Matter Hunt

Saturday morning, Rocket stands in the middle of the kitchen with the Bench Log open. "Everything in this room is matter," he says. "Prove me wrong."

Raven points at the sunlight slanting across the floor. "That."

Rocket frowns. "Light has no mass and takes up no space. Fine. One point for you."

Nova hums a soft tone and dims her light. "Listen," she says. "Is a sound matter?"

"No," Rocket says. "Energy again. Two points." He opens the refrigerator and a puff of cold air rolls out. "But that is matter!"

"What do you notice?" Raven asks. "You can feel cold air, even though you cannot see it."

They start a list: matter on one side, not matter on the other. It takes the whole morning.

  1. Matter is anything that has mass and volume. Light and sound are energy, not matter.
  2. Air is matter: a filled balloon has more mass than an empty one.
  3. Mass is the amount of matter, measured with a balance in grams. Weight is the pull of gravity, which depends on mass and on gravity.
  4. Volume is the space an object takes up. Use a measuring cup for liquids, length times width times height for boxes, and displacement for odd shapes.
  5. All matter is made of atoms. There are 118 elements, listed on the periodic table in order of atomic number, the number of protons.
◇ FAMILY MATTER HUNT
Walk through your home together with the Bench Log. Find at least ten things and decide: matter, or not matter?
Try to find three things that are not matter. Light, sound and heat from a warm cup are good places to start.
For five objects that are matter, guess which has the most mass. Then check with a kitchen scale if you have one.
Pick one odd shaped object that fits in a measuring cup, and measure its volume by displacement together.
Talk it over: which object has a big volume but a small mass? Which has a small volume but a big mass?
For a grown-up
The hunt stays indoors or in the yard. Nothing is tasted, and balloons stay away from young children.
A kitchen scale is helpful but not required. Comparing by hand works fine.
Facts this week come from NASA Glenn, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIH PubChem and LibreTexts. You can read them at nist.gov and libretexts.org.
Safety first
Only water goes in the measuring cup, and only objects that are safe to get wet.
A grown-up handles anything sharp, hot or breakable during the hunt.
Wash your hands when the hunt is done.
THINK IT THROUGH
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
Your family finds a pillow and a small rock. The pillow is bigger. Which has more mass?
Cold air rolls out of the refrigerator. Is it matter?
Which of these is NOT matter?
How many known elements are on the periodic table? Type a number.
WHY THIS EXERCISEEvery object your family found today is built from some of those 118 kinds of atoms.
Bench Day checkTrue or false?
Sunlight is matter.?
A bigger object always has more mass.?
The displacement method finds the volume of an odd shaped object.?
Everything your family found that has mass and volume is made of atoms.?
WHY THIS EXERCISEThe hunt turns the definition of matter into something you can test on anything you find.
Draw a two column chart, matter and not matter, and sketch five things your family found in each column.
← Friday