Measuring the Volume of Water (2).

 TEACHING ACTIVITY (FOR HIGH ACHIEVER STUDENTS)

Measuring the volume of liquid can be done by using any small container to fill a larger one. It could be anything that will hold liquids.

In their daily activity at home, the students might be could see their mother measuring water by using teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, bowls, glass, jugs, and gallons. This is not wrong, as the volume of water is measured by using those as a unit. For an example; a teaspoon of salt, 2 glasses of milk, etc.

For a high achiever students, they could imagine something more that can be used to measure volume. 

The activity could be started by ask the students to collect some different kinds of containers that will hold liquids. A teacup, paper cup, drinking glasses, coffee mug, jug, and bottle.

Then, ask the students to arrange all the containers in order of the amount of water they think will hold; have the smallest container on the left, and the largest one on the right.

That jug is much taller than the drinking glass, let's the student to put it to the right of the glass. Also, since some people use paper cup to drink, and they are the same height, they must be the same size, then put those next to each other.

The next step needs a pail of water. It could be nice if the water is coloured with food colouring, such as blue which it will be easier the students to see the volume of the water.

The first test will show us how good the students are at estimating the volume of an amount of water. First, let the students to fill the drinking glass, with the blue water until full. Look at it closely, and decide how high the water would be if it were poured into some of the other containers.

Some students might think that the water would reach half-way to the top of the bottle, because the bottle is twice as tall as the glass. But then, let them to pour the water first. 

After pouring the water, let the student to see the result. Does the result same as what they think? The bottle is full, even though they only poured out half the water from the glass. Let the students to identify the reason, it could be because the bottle is skinny and the glass is fat? 

This time, get a small container and estimate how many times they could fill it from the glass. They can try a teacup. Teacup is a lot shorter than the drinking glass, so it could fill the water three times from the full glass. 

For the rest of containers, ask the other students to try those. Let them to compare the volume of the water in each container.

What the students can see from this activity is that the volume of the water is sometime hard to estimate. Many aspects need to be considered in measuring the volume of the liquid, such as the height, width, and thickness of the containers.

The liquids have no shape of their own, but take on the shape of their containers. The containers used for measuring might be not really accurate, as the further measurement must be by using graduated cylinder.

After all the measurement by using those containers, students must then measure the exact volume of the water by using this graduated cylinder. There they will get the exact answer for their measurement of the volume of the water and differentiate which containers are containing more water. There, they will get the accurate answer for their experiment!