At Chapin, 'Volume' is More Than a Dial on an iPod

10/10/2007- The Chapin School

Volume, as Class 3 recently learned, is a question of capacity.How much stuff fits in a certain container? And how accurately can the amount of that stuff be measured?

Students assessed volume last week with their science teacher, Christy Glynn, who set up a fun exercise to put them through the paces of measurement. She stationed eight containers around her classroom that held liquids of varying quantities and colors: a relatively full jar of salmon-tinged water, for example, or the barest sip in a blue hue.

It was up to the girls to find out how many milliliters of each they had.This wasn't quite as easy as it sounds. Mrs. Glynn offered the students three graduated cylinders at each station - one with a 100-milliliter capacity, and two smaller cousins that held 50 and 25 milliliters each - and the girls had to eyeball the cups and jars of water to choose which measurement device would be best. (Pick one that's too small, and the water would overflow; pick one that's too large, and the liquid might not even reach the cylinder's lowest measurement line.) Sometimes the students chose perfectly on the first try; in other cases, trial and error helped them select the right tool for the job.

Volume measurement joins Class 3's growing toolkit of observational techniques that will equip them for this year's scientific investigations. It's clear that for these students, capacity is not an issue.

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