Like all good scientists do, we began our experiment by making some observations about our two cans of soda. Students used their senses to observe the similarities and differences of both cans.
After we made our observations we had a lot of questions like:
"Does real sugar weigh more or less than fake sugar?"
"Why does one can make a lower sound when I hit it?"
I gave them two questions to answer using the remaining steps of the Scientific Method:
1. If I put the can of regular soda in a bucket of water, will it sink or float?
2. If I put the can of diet soda in a bucket of water, will it sink or float?
"Does real sugar weigh more or less than fake sugar?"
"Why does one can make a lower sound when I hit it?"
I gave them two questions to answer using the remaining steps of the Scientific Method:
1. If I put the can of regular soda in a bucket of water, will it sink or float?
2. If I put the can of diet soda in a bucket of water, will it sink or float?
Can you guess what happened? Most of us had a very accurate hypothesis! Scroll down to see what happened!!
Conclusion: The matter that makes up the regular soda is greater than the matter that makes up the diet coke. That makes it have a greater mass. When you divide it by the same volume for each can you can (pardon the pun!) conclude that the regular soda has a greater density than the diet soda, therefore it sinks!