Water Up Close
NGSS HS-PS1-3
Read the standard: HS-PS1-3
Pick a property of water and see it twice at once: the molecules on the left, real life on the right, from a microwave race to why ice floats.
About This Interactive
What do students do?
A split screen with the molecules on the left and real life on the right. Students pick one of eight properties of water and both sides change together, with a cause-and-effect claim connecting them. They race three items in a microwave and find the one that never heats, pile water drops onto a penny until the dome bursts, then add soap and count again, narrow a capillary tube until the water climbs, then swap in mercury and watch everything invert, and freeze a lake from the top down to find the fish wintering in the 4 degree water at the bottom. A what-if switch turns off hydrogen bonding, and water's boiling point falls to about −80 °C, which is the whole story of the molecule's polarity in one move.
What does it cover?
NGSS HS-PS1-3: plan and conduct an investigation to gather evidence to compare the structure of substances at the bulk scale to infer the strength of electrical forces between particles. Every number in it is the real one, from the boiling points of water's chemical family to the contact angles of the two liquids. Key vocabulary: polarity, hydrogen bond, cohesion, adhesion, surface tension, capillary action, specific heat.
How long does it take?
20 to 30 minutes for the quick version, or two full 90 minute high school lessons in which students meet each phenomenon at a real demo bench first, and the interactive explains what they saw afterward.
What does it run on?
Every SciMinis interactive runs free in the browser with nothing to install and no accounts, on Chromebooks, laptops, tablets, and phones. It's fully bilingual: one tap switches the whole interactive, worksheet included, between English and Spanish.
What do teachers get?
Each interactive ships with vocabulary flashcards, a ten-question worksheet students can export as a PDF, and complete NGSS-aligned lesson plans: a 20 to 30 minute quick version and a full timed 5E lesson. The lesson plans and answer key stay behind a free teacher password, so students can't peek.