Watch: What is dissolving?
Learn about dissolving and mixing.
When you add some sugar to water and stir, what does the water taste like? Can you explain why?
The water tastes sweet because the sugar is still there, even if you can鈥檛 see it because it has dissolved.
Dissolving
When a substance dissolves, it might look like it has disappeared, but in fact it has just mixed with the water to make a transparent (see-through) liquid called a solution.
Substances that dissolve in water are called soluble substances. When you mix sugar with water, the sugar dissolves to make a transparent solution. Salt is soluble in water too.
Substances that do not dissolve in water are called insoluble substances. When you mix sand or flour with water, they do not dissolve.
Watch: Solutions
Discover all about solutions.
Investigate different substances
Tap on the different substances to find out what happens when you add them to water.
Watch: Key learning
Here's what you needed to know about dissolving and evaporation.
Activity 1: Fill in the gaps
Activity 2: Quiz
Activity 3: Investigating dissolving
You may need a pen and pencil for this activity.
Try stirring small amounts of some solid substances into different samples of water to see if they are soluble. What substances could you try?
You could try different things around the house such as:
- instant coffee
- tea leaves (carefully tear open a tea bag)
- gravel
- pencil sharpening
- cornflour
- bicarbonate of soda
- icing sugar
More on Properties and change of materials
Find out more by working through a topic
- count4 of 5
- count5 of 5
- count1 of 5
- count2 of 5
