Educational Innovations
®
MS-2
Magic Sand
Magic Sand Investigation—Simulation of Endocytosis
1.Pour your magic sand into a dry 250 or 400 ml beaker. What shape does it form? Bumpy? Or
Flat and smooth? Describe what the surface of the sand looks like.
How is this different from normal sand? Refer to the normal sand demo if you need to.
2. Fill another beaker about half full of water (tap water is fine). Quickly dump the Magic Sand
from your first beaker into the water all at once. (As opposed to pouring it slowly.) What
shape(s) does the Magic Sand form?
What does the surface of the sand look like under water? Shiny? Or Dull?
3. With your finger, try to press the sand into different shapes against the side of the beaker.
What happens?
4. With a stirring rod, stir up the magic sand and the water, mixing them together. How is this
different from stirring up regular sand in water? Again… stir up the regular sand demo if you
need to.
5 Francis J. Clarke Circle
Bethel, CT 06801
www.teachersource.com
Phone (888) 912-7474
Fax (203) 229-0740
[email protected]
© Educational Innovations, Inc.
5. Separate the Magic Sand from the water and get it back for the next part of the lab by carefully
pouring it through a coffee filter in a funnel. Feel the sand. It is wet or dry?
6. Fill a 250 or 400 ml beaker ~1/3rd full of water. Tap water is fine.
7. Carefully sprinkle some sand on the surface of the water until you have a solid lily pad-like
layer of sand floating on top of the water about the size of a nickel or a quarter. Add a few layers
so it is uniformly thick. Could you do this with regular sand? (Try it with the regular sand if you
need to.) Why/why not?
8. Using a small beaker of colored water and a dropper, carefully drop a few drops on the surface
of the sand lily pad. What happens?
9. Use the tip of the dropper to ‘chase’ all the drops together into one big drop if they are not
already one. Add 10 more drops to the big drop and stop. Look up at the droplet from below
and draw what you see:
Describe what is happening:
Now… slowly keep adding drops to the lily pad until it no longer floats and sinks to the bottom.
What is the maximum number of drops you can add to this giant droplet?
Write the number here: _____
10. What happened when you added the last drop that made the whole thing sink?
© 2012 Educational Innovations, Inc.
www.teachersource.com
11. Explain why the whole beaker of water didn’t turn the same color as the food coloring.
12.Clean up by once again getting the magic sand back using coffee filters. Leave the sand in
the filter to dry. Dump the beakers and leave upside down on a paper towel. Clean up your area.
Answer these questions now if there is time…or as homework if not.
13. Compare and contrast the way the sand enclosed the colored water drop to how a cell ‘eats’
or ‘drinks’. Look up endocytosis and read about it before answering this question. Use all the
terms pinocytosis, phagocytosis, cell membrane, vesicle, and endocytosis in your answer.
14.What do the terms hydrophobic and hydrophilic mean? Which term describes regular sand?
Magic Sand?
© 2012 Educational Innovations, Inc.
www.teachersource.com