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Science / Properties of matter / Grade 3 / sp3m1

Follow Sugar and Sand Through a Filter

Track each material instead of deciding that a clear-looking liquid is empty.

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A material can dissolve and remain present even when its grains cannot be seen. Other grains can stay visible and settle. Follow each material separately: an ordinary sand-catching filter holds sand grains, but dissolved sugar passes with the water. These are paper records, not instructions to mix, taste or heat anything.

Worked example

In a different paper record, salt dissolves in one cup while sand stays visible in another. An ordinary filter catches the sand, not the dissolved salt. The salt is still in the water that passes through. Being out of sight is not the same as being removed.

Paper model of cup M: before filtering, four square sugar symbols are spread through water and four triangle sand symbols sit at the bottom. In the water that passed through the filter, all four sugar symbols remain and no sand symbols appear. Symbols are enlarged, not literal particle counts.
Squares mean dissolved sugar; triangles mean sand. The filter catches sand, not the dissolved sugar. Model, not a purity test.

Two Paper Cup Records

Cup L contains water and a little sugar. After stirring, no sugar grains are visible. Cup M contains water, a little sugar and sand. Its sugar dissolves, but visible sand grains settle. An ordinary filter traps the sand grains from M while its water and dissolved sugar pass into a new cup. Neither cup is heated. Do not taste any mixture; these are imagined observations, not drinking-water tests.

Question 1 What does the record say happened to the sugar in cup L?
Question 2 Which material settled as visible grains in cup M?
Question 3 What is in the new cup after M passes through the ordinary filter?
Question 4 Would passing that liquid through the same kind of ordinary sand filter remove its dissolved sugar?
Question 5 Which conclusion is supported by the paper records?