DO NOT WRITE ON THIS SHEET! 
Water Properties Lab
A.
Water on a Penny
1. How many drops of water do you think will fit on top of a penny? Record your
prediction.
• Add water to the penny drop by drop and count as you go.
2. Record how many drops you fit before it overflowed.
3. Were you close in your prediction?
4. Which properties of water allow the water to stay on top of the penny? (more
than one!)
B.
Water on a Penny with Soap
5. A) How many drops do you predict the penny will hold after it’s smeared with
soap?
B) More, less, the same? Why?
• Smear your penny with some hand soap, add water to the penny drop by drop,
and count as you go.
6. Record how many drops you fit on the penny before it overflows.
7. How did the soap affect the water properties from experiment A to B?
C.
Pepper on Water
• Put a few milliliters of water in a small Petri dish.
• Sprinkle some pepper on top of the water.
• Take a toothpick and dip it in a small amount of hand soap.
• Gently place your toothpick in the center of the water in your Petri dish.
8. What happened to the pepper when you placed the toothpick in the water?
9. Why did this happen and which property of water does the soap affect?
Continue on back 
D.
Climbing Water
• Cut a strip of paper towel long enough so it hangs about 10 cm before the
bottom of your beaker & tape it to a pencil (see image below).
• Place a dot of ink 8 cm from the bottom of your paper towel.
• Put a very small amount of water in your beaker (Just enough to reach your
paper towel).
10.
Record the time when the water touches your paper towel.
11.
Record the time when the water makes it completely over the ink dot.
12.
How long did it take the water to get to the dot on the paper towel?
13.
Which property of water allows the water to climb up the paper towel?
14.
Calculate the speed of water travel (cm/s).