lesson
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Look around your kitchen right now: an ice cube, a glass of tap water, and the steam rising from a kettle are all made of the exact same thing.
Yet they look, feel, and behave completely differently because they are in three different states of matter.
Everything around us is made of matter—which is simply anything that takes up space and has weight.
How can you tell if something in your house is a solid, a liquid, or a gas?
Solids Keep Their Shape
A solid has a fixed shape and a fixed size. If you pick up an apple and drop it into a bowl, it stays the exact same shape.
📊A clean 2D diagram comparing a solid wooden block placed in three different containers: a tall glass, a wide bowl, and a flat plate. The wooden block remains an identical red cube in all three containers with an arrow pointing to each, labeled 'Shape stays the same!' and 'Size stays the same!'. Card background #ffffff, border #e6e6e6, text #1e2945, accent #22b7ff.
Common household solids include metal spoons, plastic toys, ice cubes, wooden chairs, and ceramic mugs.
You can hold a solid in your hand, and it will not flow away or spread out on its own.
What happens when a material does not keep its own shape, but flows instead?
Liquids Flow and Take Shape
A liquid has a fixed amount of space it takes up, but it has no fixed shape of its own.
When you pour orange juice from a tall bottle into a wide mug, the juice flows and takes the shape of the new cup.