Georgia S5P1.a
The Standard
Plan and carry out investigations of physical changes by manipulating, separating and mixing dry and liquid materials.
Georgia Standards of Excellence for Science · Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to explain the differences between a physical change and a chemical change.
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students plan and carry out simple tests in which they crush, stir, dissolve, filter, sift, or pour materials. They record changes and use observations to show that no new substance formed.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students choose tools and steps that fit a mixture, such as a sieve for gravel and sand or a filter for sand and water. They explain that size, shape, state, or arrangement changed while each material kept its identity.
Common Misconceptions
- Students often think any mixture creates a new substance, or that dissolved salt has vanished. They may call a change chemical because it is hard to reverse, or assume filtering removes dissolved materials.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: A student mixes salt, sand, and water. Describe how to recover the sand and salt, then give evidence that only physical changes occurred.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give groups sand, gravel, salt, water, sieves, filters, cups, and evaporation dishes; students mix, separate, and record evidence that materials retain their identities.
After evaporating saltwater, ask students to write: What evidence shows that the salt remained present throughout the investigation?
Play Separation Relay: teams match mixture cards to a sieve, filter, magnet, settling, or evaporation, then justify each choice.
Give students a muddy-water cleanup scenario and ask them to choose settling, pouring, filtering, or evaporation for each material.
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Printable S5P1.a Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to S5P1.a, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.
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