Is Gas Strong Enough to Pick Up a Raisin?

As we explore states of matter we decided to ask, "Is gas strong enough to pick up a raisin"? Ms. L. explained that we were going to put raisins in soda water to see if gas was strong enough to pick up a raisin.  We made and documented our predictions.  Then we put raisins in a bowl and we added soda water and waited.

Pretty quickly gas bubbles started to form around the raisins, and then suddenly the raisin was up at the top of the water.  The gas DID pick up the raisin.

But then, we were surprised because all of a sudden the raisin dropped back to the bottom of the bowl. Why? We wondered. But we have been experimenting with matter and so we remembered that gas likes to take up as much space as there is. We realized that once the gas bubbles got up to the top of the liquid, they escaped into the air, and dropped the raisin back down.

This simple experiment also had us talking about how matter takes up space, and that there can't be a gas, or a solid or a liquid in the exact same spot as each other.

We ended our activity by reflecting on what we discovered.  This is just one of many wonders we will have this year.