Printable Cluster 3  

This cluster is comprised of six 45-minute lessons. Students will revisit their landfill bottles to observe and record changes in the properties of the garbage materials. They will also re-weigh their bottles and compare the weights of the closed and open bottles to their initial weights. Students will notice the smells that have been produced by the rotting garbage in the open bottle and examine the question of whether smell is something and whether gases, such as the smell and air, have weight. The class will conduct investigations to learn that gas is a form of matter, has weight, and is made of particles that are too small to see and that move freely. They will also read an article about the conservation of matter. These investigations and the reading will help them create and revise models of the gases in their landfill bottles and understand why the closed landfill bottles weigh more than the open bottles. Finally, groups will create models of their landfill bottles that represent what they’ve learned about what happens to garbage materials in a landfill.