8th Grade Performance Task
Contributed by: New York State Education Department (NYSED)
NYS Alternative Assessment in Science Project (1996)
Student #1
Task:
At this station, you will determine the number
of shakes necessary to dissolve various sugar sized particles.
Materials:
1 sugar cube
water (500ml)
granulated sugar in a sealed container
2 bottles with caps, labeled A and B
waste cup
safety goggles
teaspoon
super fine sugar sample
graduated cylinder
Directions:
Put on safety goggles. Do not taste any substance
in this activity. Clean up any spills immediately.
Use your hand lens to carefully observe the sugar cube and the
super fine sugar. Which form of sugar has the smaller size particles?
Add 50 ml of water to the two (2) bottles).
Drop one sugar cube into bottle A and close the bottle
tightly.
Count how many shakes it takes to totally dissolve the sugar
cube.
Record your data in the data table below.
Place one level teaspoon of super fine sugar into
Bottle B and repeat steps 5 and 6.
Dump the contents of the two (2) bottles into the waste cup
and rinse the bottles. Leave one bottle on the desk and let it
stand without movement.
Use your hand lens to carefully observe the particle size of
the granulated table sugar. Use the information from the line
graph. Predict the number of shakes it would take to completely
dissolve one level teaspoon of the granulated table sugar in the
same amount of water.
Write a generalized statement which explains the relationship
between the particle size of the sugar and the number of shakes
needed to dissolve the sugar.
