Density in nature

Science is so much fun especially when it is experiment day.  C13 has completed a couple of the science experiments in her Apologia General Science book.  The first experiment  was based on  an idea by Democritus.  According to Democritus, everything is made up of individual atoms and the way that those atoms are packed together determines the object's characteristics.  For this particular experiment, the weight of the objects being tested.

Here is what we used and what the results were.

corn syrup, oil, water, a rock, a grape, a piece of cork, an ice cube, and a tall glass.

We used 1/4 cup for each of the liquid supplies.  First, we added the veg. oil, then comes the water followed by the corn syrup.  This is how the liquids look after they are added.

If you look closely, you can see the layers of separation.  The corn syrup is the bottom layer, the water is the middle layer, and the veg oil is the top layer which means that the atoms in the syrup are more tightly packed than that of those in the water and the oil.  C13 recorded this info on her lab sheet.  Then you add your solids to the glass.

This is the glass after the rock, grape, cork, and ice cube were added.  You can easily tell what happened.

 The rock sank to the bottom with the corn syrup which means we can again conclude that the atoms in the rock are more tightly packed together.  The ice cube and the grape float in the layer of water which means that the atoms in the ice cube and the grape were packed tightly enough to pass through the veg oil layer but not packed tightly enough to get to the syrup layer.  The cork floats on top of the veg oil because the atoms are packed together very loosely so it cannot penetrate through any of the layers causing it to just float on top.  These results were also recorded on C13's lab sheet.

This is brilliant way to help anyone understand the idea behind an atom.