Calibrating

As you can see from Cameron's face, science is a blast!

We learned what 'calibrate' means...and then we calibrated a cup in 20 mL increments. 

After only calibrating 20 mL, each pair estimated how many centimeters 100 mL would be....

they also estimated the 'capacity' of the cup...

Once the estimations were complete, they continued to calibrate the cup until they had 100 mL.  Then measure the height of that amount in centimeters...

then continued to calibrate until they had the actual capacity. 

 After estimating and calibrating with our first cup...each pair was given a second cup...a different size...and they estimated how full it would be at 100 mL...

 After estimating, they continued to calibrate this 'mystery cup' to see the capacity...

 What was our goal? 
We were learning about calibrations....about 'capacity'.....and conservation of water!  100 mL of water can look different in differently shaped containers...but it's still 100 mL!  Sounds simple?  It can definitely be a hard concept to grasp.

We didn't all come up with the same capacities...or the same measurements for the 100 mL mark.  We discussed 'margin of error' once again...but the difference in 'capacity' measurements was more than 'margin of error'....so we had discussions on why some were so different.

Science...it's so much fun!