I found a fun activity to challenge students to investigate what volume is. My students were successful in using the algorithm, but, did they really understand the difference between volume and capacity?

I must admit, I wanted to make this challenging by using the word ‘vessel’ instead of box. One pair of students wanted to make a cylinder, while others used origami skills to make a ‘sturdy’ box…but were they using as much paper as possible?

I told students that we would experiment with puffed rice and MAB (pictured) before they began. I was surprised to see one pair make a cylinder but they rethought their decision when they tested their vessel with cubes! What happens to all of the empty space? Is the calculation accurate?

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Download the task card here

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Thank you so much for reading this post. If you decide to use this in your classroom, please feel free to come back and leave some feedback or share your ideas.