Separating Mixtures Lab

Both my 5th and 6th graders do a separating mixtures lab. This is the 6th grade lab that can be found in Matter and Change by Delta Science Modules.

I set of the trays before the students come to the lab.  It included a funnel, filter paper, pie tin, water, 2 stir sticks, salt and sand.

The students filled the cups about half way with water and stirred the mixtures.  They made notes in their journal about what happened.

Next, they poured the cup of saltwater into the sand mixture and stirred.  They then folded the filter paper and put it into the funnel. They filtered they sand/salt/water mixture.  The sand was filtered out by the filter paper and the salt and water went through and was sitting in the pie pan. We let the water sit out for several days and this is what was left.

The students were amazed to see how the crystal reformed. I apologize for the bad picture, it was hard to get a close-up with my phone.

At the end of this lesson, the students were able to differentiate between a solutions and suspensions. I apologize for not having more pictures, but both the 5th and 6th grade were doing different labs at the same time and I just couldn't keep up.