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Worksheet Grade 1 Engineering & Design

Damson Lane's Cold Jar Test: A Grade 1 Water Catcher Worksheet

A grade 1 worksheet using drop counts from a cold jar and a room jar so students subtract within 20 and design a collar that guides drops into the tray.

Objectives

  1. Students will compare drop counts from two jars and say which one caught more water.
  2. Students will add and subtract within 20 to compare the two test results.
  3. Students will explain that the drops on a cold jar came from water in the air.

Vocabulary

Condensation
Condensation is when water vapor in the air cools down and turns back into tiny liquid water droplets. It is how clouds form and why a cold glass gets wet on the outside on a warm day.
Water vapor
Water vapor is water in the form of an invisible gas mixed into the air. There is always some water vapor around you, even when the sky is completely clear.

Teacher overview

A class at the make-believe Damson Lane School asked whether they could catch drinking water out of the air on a humid afternoon, which is a question engineers in dry parts of the world take seriously. The class ran a plain test: two jars of the same size stood on two trays for half an hour, one filled with ice water and one filled with water from the tap. Students counted the drops that ran down the outside of each jar and landed in the tray. They then tried one improvement, a foil collar wrapped around the jar to steer the drops inward, and counted again. This worksheet gives students those counts and asks them to compare the two jars, weigh the improvement, and sketch a catcher of their own. The last item ties the drops back to the water cycle, since the water on the outside of the jar came out of the air rather than out of the jar.

Damson Lane's Cold Jar Test: A Grade 1 Water Catcher Worksheet — Grade 1 Engineering & Design
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

Read aloud: A class put two jars on two trays. Jar A held ice water. Jar B held water from the tap. The jars sat for half an hour. Drops ran down the outside of each jar. The class counted the drops that fell in each tray. Jar A caught 14 drops. Jar B caught 3 drops.

  1. Jar A caught 14 drops. Jar B caught 3 drops. Which jar caught more water? Write A or B.
  2. Jar A caught 14 drops. Jar B caught 3 drops. How many more drops did Jar A catch?
  3. Jar A caught 14 drops. Jar B caught 3 drops. Add them. How many drops is that in all?
  4. Jar A held ice water. Jar B held tap water. Tell one way the cold water helped Jar A.
  5. Next the class taped a foil collar on Jar A. Then Jar A caught 18 drops. Before the collar, Jar A caught 14 drops. How many more drops did the collar add?
  6. The class wants 20 drops. With the collar, Jar A caught 18 drops. How many more drops do they need?
  7. Draw a jar with a part that guides drops into the tray. Tell one way the shape of that part helps.
  8. The drops on the jar came from water in the air. Tell one place that water in the air came from.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: Jar A.
    Jar A caught 14 drops and Jar B caught 3 drops, and 14 is more than 3.
  2. Answer: 11 drops.
    14 − 3 = 11, so Jar A caught 11 more drops than Jar B.
  3. Answer: 17 drops.
    14 + 3 = 17 drops in all. Students who break 14 into 10 and 4 can add 4 + 3 = 7, then 10 + 7 = 17.
  4. Answer: The cold jar made the water in the air turn back into drops on its outside.
    Accept any wording that ties the cold surface to more drops, such as saying cold makes the air next to the jar let go of its water.
  5. Answer: 4 drops.
    The jar went from 14 drops to 18 drops, and 18 − 14 = 4 more drops.
  6. Answer: 2 drops.
    The class has 18 of the 20 drops it wants, and 18 + 2 = 20, so 20 − 18 = 2 more drops.
  7. Answer: Answers vary.
    Accept any drawing with a part that leads drops down and inward, such as a collar, a lip, or a slanted shelf, along with a stated reason tied to that shape.
  8. Answer: It came from water that dried up out of puddles, lakes, oceans, or plants.
    Accept any source of evaporated water, including a wet sidewalk, a pot on the stove, or the sea.

Differentiation

Support (below grade level)

Give these students two ten-frames and counters so 14 drops and 3 drops can be built side by side before items 2 and 3. Write the two totals, 14 and 3, on a sticky note at the top of the page so no item depends on rereading the setup. Accept spoken answers for items 4, 7, and 8 with a scribe.

Extension (above grade level)

Ask these students to predict how many drops two collared jars would catch together and to show their reasoning with a drawing or a number sentence. They can also design a catcher for a whole window ledge and explain where the water would end up.

ELL supports

Post two picture cards, one showing a jar beaded with drops over a full tray and one showing a dry jar over an empty tray, so items 1 and 4 can be answered by pointing before writing. Pre-teach four words at a real jar: cold, drop, tray, catch. Allow items 4, 7, and 8 to be answered with a labeled drawing or in a student's home language while an adult scribes the English word beside it.

Extensions

Set two jars on trays in your own classroom during the warmest part of the day and count the drops after half an hour, then compare the class's two counts with the ones on this page. Students can put a hand near the cold jar and describe what the air feels like there, which gives the word condensation something physical to attach to.