Chapter 5 Lesson 1
Properties of Matter
Matter
What is Matter?
Why should it Matter?
• Scientists say that all objects around you are
made of matter.
• Doors, walls, windows, floor, ceiling, desks,
chairs and lights. All of these are made of
Matter!
• The many kinds of matter found in your
classroom are just a small part of all the
matter found on Earth.
• Scientists define matter as anything that takes
up space and has mass and volume.
Matter and Mass
• What is mass?
• We use the word mass to talk about how much
matter there is in something. (Matter is anything
you can touch physically.) On Earth, we weigh
things to figure out how much mass there is. The
more matter there is, the more something will
weigh. Often, the amount of mass something has
is related to its size, but not always. A balloon
blown up bigger than your head will still have less
matter inside it than your head (for most people,
anyhow) and therefore less mass.
Mass
• The difference between mass and weight is
that weight is determined by how much
something is pulled by gravity. If we are
comparing two different things to each other
on Earth, they are pulled the same by gravity
and so the one with more mass weighs more.
But in space, where the pull of gravity is very
small, something can have almost no weight.
It still has matter in it, though, so it still has
mass
Measuring Mass
• Is a rock matter? First of all, we have to check
and see if a rock takes up space.
• If you can measure it, it definitely takes up
space!
• Next, can you weigh the rock? If your rock has
weight, it has mass.
Measuring Mass
• What about water?
• You can put water in a container. As you fill up
the container, you can see the water fill the
container so you know the water takes up
space.
• Can you weigh water? Yes, you know that a
full gallon of milk weighs more than an empty
gallon container.
Questions
• 1. How do scientists define matter?
• 2. Are you made of matter? How can you
prove that?
• 3. List five things in your classroom that are
matter.
Weight
• Weight: how strongly gravity pulls on an
object.
• If an object has more mass, it will also have
more weight.
Volume
• Mass and weight describe the amount of
matter in an object, but what about its size?
• Volume measures how much space matter
takes up.
• A rock dropped in water, will make the level of
water rise. The amount of measured change
in the level of water will tell a scientist the
amount of space taken up by the rock. That
measurement is the rocks volume!
Density
• Density: the relative "heaviness" of objects
with a constant volume.
• An empty box and the exact same size box
filled with rocks will have the same volume,
but not the same density. One box weighs
much more, even though they are the same
size!
Buoyancy
• Buoyancy: is the resistance to sinking. It
occurs because the fluid that is being pushed
out of the way pushes back on the object.
• If an object is denser than fluid, the object can
push harder and it sinks.
• If the fluid is more dense than the object, the
fluid will push the object to the surface.
State of Matter
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Solid
Liquid
Gas
Plasma