Science 1 Scavenger Hunt: Material Science

Description

In our modern world, materials have overlapping uses and forms, making them difficult to categorize. For early education, the focus is to give students the language to recognize materials around them, and to infer similar properties in those materials.

This scavenger hunt categorizes materials into seven groups: metals, ceramics, glass, plastics, wood, textiles, and composites.

Some helpful context for teachers:

Wood
While wood is technically a natural composite of cellulose and lignin, it is listed separately from the other composites because of its visible properties, such as color and texture, which makes it easily identifiable for children.

Textiles
Textiles are also composites of animal, plant, mineral and polymer materials, but are grouped separately because of their easily identifiable properties, such as softness and flexibility.

Glass
Glass is often grouped with ceramics, and sometimes with polymers, but is categorized separately here for its easily recognizable properties of hardness and transparency.