Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to assess how changes of state of liquids and solids affect people and environments, and to classify solid materials by whether they absorb or repel water. The museum offers one account of snow in a city and one example of a material that takes in water; your class will test buoyancy and compare many more materials. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- C1.2 assess the impacts of changes of state of liquids and solids on humans and on environments
- C2.6 classify solid objects and materials in terms of their buoyancy and in terms of their ability to absorb or repel water
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
What did the snow change for people?
Think about what a solid form of water makes people do. List what changed in the streets and on the roofs, and what would happen when the snow melted.
Does this material take in water or turn it away?
Drop a little water on each material and watch. Sort the materials into those that absorb water and those that repel it, and say how you know.
Go deeper
Snow fell at Baghdad on Wednesday the eleventh of Rabi' I 398. It lay a cubit deep in places and a cubit and a half. It stayed a week unmelted, and people shovelled it from their roofs into the streets and lanes. Traces remained some twenty days 2. The record cites the history al-Muntazam by Ibn al-Jawzi for this.
Think about it
People shovelled the snow from their roofs into the streets. Why might they have done that, and what do you think happened to the snow once it melted?
Into the museum
- The Great Snowfall of Baghdad in 398: the whole account, and the towns the snow reached.
- Unglazed earthenware: pitchers that stored water and kept it cool by evaporation.
Try this
Read the cards on The Great Snowfall of Baghdad in 398 and on unglazed earthenware. Draw one thing in each card that shows water as a solid or a liquid, and say what people did about it.
4 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does The Great Snowfall of Baghdad in 398 have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A week of snow in Baghdad. Ibn al-Jawzi's al-Muntazam reports that snow fell at Baghdad on Wednesday, 11 Rabi' I 398, a cubit deep in places and a cubit and a half. It stayed a week unmelted, and people shovelled it from their roofs into the streets and lanes; traces remained some twenty days. How can snow change what people do in a city?
In your own words: what does Unglazed earthenware (early Islamic Iran) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Pots that hold and cool water. Wilkinson writes that at Nishapur unglazed ware served for cooking vessels and above all for storing water, and that because it soaked up liquids it was unfitting for milk, wine or oil. Large pitchers held water in every house, and its pitchers kept water cool by evaporation in a hot, dry land. Which materials in your classroom would soak up water, and which would repel it?
I can now