Capillary Action in Sand

Each group needs:

• colored pencils
•  $300 in play money; download free PDFs of printable play money at http://www.printableplaymoney.net/ and then print as needed; recommended to get denominations of $10s, $20s and $50s
• assorted building and construction materials from which teams may choose as they sketch and then build their designs; as listed in Table 1 on the Design Challenge & Experiment Worksheet (PDF), such as glues, tapes, string, sponges, cotton pads, wire mesh, plastic and Styrofoam cups, drinking straws, pipe cleaners popsicle sticks, various sizes of plastic water bottles, plastic food containers, each assigned a “cost”
• 200 ml each of four types of sand: coarse, medium, fine and mixed; such as available at Carolina
• six 250-ml beakers, one for each of the 4 sand samples and 2 for water
• timer
• 250-ml graduated cylinder
• Activity Pre-Evaluation (PDF), Demo Worksheet (PDF), Design Challenge & Experiment Worksheet (PDF) and Activity Post-Evaluation (PDF), one each per student
• (optional) calculator

To share with the entire class:

• permanent marker
• capillary tube demonstrator; such as the scientific capillary tube set (three 15-cm tubes, large tube for reservoir, all mounted on a stand) for $10 from Frey Scientific at: https://store.schoolspecialty.com/OA_HTML/ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?minisite=10029&item=36424
• needle tool, to make holes in plastic containers; such as the Kemper Tools professional needle tool for $5 at https://www.amazon.com/Kemper-Tools-Professional-Needle-Tool/dp/B0023ATIM6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516677742&sr=8-1&keywords=Kemper+Tools+professional+needle+tool
• hand-held hole puncher, to punch holes in plastic containers; available for $2.35 at https://www.amazon.com/Swingline-1-Hole-Punch-Sheets-A7074005/dp/B00006IBK9
• 25-cm long metric printable paper ruler; such as those available for free PDF download at http://www.vendian.org/mncharity/dir3/paper_rulers/ and then print as needed
• 20-inch stainless steel metric ruler; such as the double-sided stainless steel metric ruler measuring tool by uxcell (20-inch, 50 cm) at https://www.amazon.com/uxcell-Measuring-0-5mm-Accuracy-Straight/dp/B01E64BD3S/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1515024940&sr=8-5&keywords=20+inch+stainless+steel+metric+ruler
• brightly colored liquid food dye/coloring, such as red