In the third level of Sort Storm, changes fall from the sky: ice melting, bread toasting, iron rusting. Your kid steers each one into the Physical bin or the Chemical bin. A wrong bin shows the right answer with a one-line reason.
What's the difference?
In a physical change, a substance changes its shape, size or state, but it is still the same substance. Melting ice is still water. Cut paper is still paper.
In a chemical change, the substance turns into one or more new substances. Burning wood leaves ash and gives off smoke and gases; it can't be turned back into wood.
Kitchen examples
- Physical: ice melting, water boiling, freezing juice into ice pops, chopping wood, breaking a glass, crushing a soda can.
- Chemical: baking a cake, toasting bread, milk going sour, a cut apple turning brown, a match burning.
Clues that a chemical change may have happened include a new color, a new smell, bubbles of gas, or light and heat being given off. These are clues rather than proof: boiling water makes bubbles too, but it is still water.
A quick test for kids
Ask two questions: is it still the same stuff, and is there something new that wasn't there before? Melted chocolate is still chocolate (physical). Toast is no longer plain bread; the browned surface is made of new substances (chemical).
Play physical or chemical change
Questions parents ask
What grade learns physical and chemical changes?
Sort Storm's version is aimed at grades 7 and 8. In the Next Generation Science Standards, middle school students analyze properties of substances before and after they interact to decide whether a chemical reaction has occurred.
Is melting a physical or chemical change?
Physical. Melting changes a substance from solid to liquid, but it is still the same substance.
Is the game free?
Yes. Sort Storm plays in a web browser with no account, no download and no ads.
Keep exploring
Sources
Every fact on this page was checked against these sources by a separate fact-checker.