Chapter 3: States of Matter – Sample Activity

Context

There is a birthday party coming up soon for your friend and you really want to surprise her with a gift of ice cream.

Support Material

Task

Make a write-up indicating all the steps you would follow to make the gift.

Chapter Summary

In this chapter, you have learnt that:

Matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having a volume.

The four natural states of matter are solid, liquid, gas and plasma.

The change in the state of matter depends on whether energy is added to or removed from the original state.

The change of state of matter is useful to human beings, e.g. cooling of our bodies.

The water cycle describes how water evaporates from the surface of the earth, rises into the atmosphere, cools and condenses into rain or snow in clouds, and falls again to the surface as precipitation.

The particle theory helps us to explain the properties and behaviour of materials.

Diffusion is the movement of molecules or particles from an area of higher concentration to an area of lower concentration, continuing until an equilibrium is reached.

Temperature and particle size are the factors that affect the rate of diffusion in fluids and gases.

A vast number of natural processes rely on diffusion such as breathing, air pollution, diffusion of calcium and water in animals and also the functioning of the liver and kidneys.

Brownian motion provides evidence of the kinetic theory of matter.