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Lesson · Grade 3 · Science

What Is Matter? Even Air Counts

  • Grade 3
  • Science
  • 1 min 5 s
  • British Columbia
  • BC3-SC-07

A diagram builds up step by step from the word matter to its two tests, has mass and takes up space: a rock tips a pan balance and makes the water in a glass go up. Then air fills a balloon and a full balloon tips the balance against an empty one, showing that air is matter too.

Concept: Matter: anything that has mass and takes up space

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In one sentence

The question this lesson answers

What is matter?

Matter is anything that has mass and takes up space.

Transcript

What the lesson says

What is matter?

Matter is anything that has mass and takes up space.

Mass is how much stuff is in something.

Put a rock on one side of a balance, and that side goes down.

So the rock has mass.

Now drop the rock into a glass of water.

The water goes up, because the rock takes up space.

The rock has mass and takes up space, so it is matter.

Is air matter, even though we cannot see it?

Blow up a balloon, and the air fills it.

So air takes up space.

Put a full balloon and an empty balloon on a balance.

The full one goes down a little, so air has mass.

Air is matter too.

Matter is anything that has mass and takes up space.

Curriculum

Where this fits

British Columbia, Grade 3

Science, Chemistry: matter is anything that has mass and takes up spaceBC3-SC-07

Next: Everything Is Made of Tiny Atoms

The outcomes and strands follow the British Columbia curriculum.

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