Water

Learn about water, dissolving and changes of state with this short podcast.

Produced by FunKids Radio and the RSC, this short snippet uses Kareena and her superhero friend K-Mistry to introduce children to water, dissolving and changes of state.

This podcasts can be used as a ’hook’ when introducing the topic to your students, or at the end of a lesson to stimulate discussion about what they have learnt.

If you teach primary science, see the headings below to find out how to use this resource:

Skill development

Children will develop their working scientifically skills by:

• Drawing conclusions and raising further questions that could be investigated, based on their data and observations.
• Using appropriate scientific language and ideas to explain, evaluate and communicate their findings.
• Asking their own questions about scientific phenomena.

Learning outcomes

Children will:

• Observe that some materials will dissolve in liquid to form a solution, and describe how to recover a substance from a solution.
• Demonstrate that dissolving is a reversible change.
• Compare and group materials together according to whether they are solids, liquids or gases.

Concepts supported

Children will learn:

• That some substances can be dissolved in liquids, and that they don’t ‘disappear’.
• That water often contains dissolved minerals, such as sodium and fluoride.
• How to recover solids from a solution using evaporation.
• That water can change state and that these processes are reversible.
• That ice and water are chemically the same, and that ice is water in a different state of matter.

Suggested activity use

This activity provides a useful hook into investigating different processes revolving around water, including dissolving, evaporation, the changing of states, and reversible and irreversible changes.

Children could work in small groups, carrying out activities in a carousel, each of which focuses on a different process. You could also expand the activities to involve different solids and liquids, other than water.

Practical considerations

If using a carousel of activities, you may need additional adults to make sure children engage fully with the activities.

You may require different solids and liquids if the activity is being used to go beyond just looking at water.