As a final teaser and check on students' understanding, Mr. B. brought out two transparent containers of colorless liquids. He asked the class to gather around, took a candle and cut two quite different-sized pieces from it. The students were asked to predict what would happen when the candle pieces were put in the liquids. Mr. B. dropped the pieces into the columns: In one container the big piece sank to the bottom; in the other, the small one floated on the top. Some students had predicted this result, saying that the bigger one was heavier and therefore would sink. Others were perplexed. The two pieces were made of the same wax so they shouldn't be different. Something was wrong. Were the two liquids really the same? Mr. B. removed the pieces of wax from the containers and reversed them. This time the little one sank and the big one floated. "Unfair," came a chorus of voices. "The liquids aren't the same."

Mr. B. had used water and isopropyl alcohol. But he noticed several students were willing to explain the sinking of the larger piece of candle and not the smaller by the difference in the size of the piece.

Mr. B. closed the lesson by summing up. They had seen the density column and worked with the liquids themselves; they had tried floating objects in liquids; they had seen the pieces of wax in the liquids. What was the explanation for all these phenomena? For homework that night he asked them to do two things. They were to think about and write down any ideas they had about what was happening in all these experiences. He also asked them to think about and write about examples of these phenomena in their daily lives. After the students shared some of their observations from outside the classroom, Mr. B. would have the students observe as he boiled water to initiate discussion of boiling points.