This week, students in Mrs. Shteingart’s 7th grade science classes began building their lab skills by working on understanding volume and learning how to measure it. In order to put this skill to the test, students spent a class in the lab becoming familiar with graduated cylinders, beakers and test tubes by measuring and mixing different colored solutions. They also got a good feel for experimental error and trial and error as the lab proceeded. Each group started the class with a yellow solution, blue solution and red solution. Following a guided procedure, students added very specific amounts of the solutions to one of six test tubes. They were then told to remove different amounts from one test tube to add to another. Colors began to mix and change and the excitement level of what was being created rose quickly. It was amazing to watch the care with which students handled all the equipment and how they spent time pouring back and forth between the graduated cylinders and beakers to make sure the volumes they were using were exact. Students were not informed in advance of what the end result of the lab activity would look like but were told that once they were finished, if they had completed the procedure properly, the correct answer would be clear. As they finished up the activity, the answer was indeed obvious and we were left with a lab full of amazing rainbows!