A Balancing Act!

  Last week in Math we experiemented with balance scales to compare the weight of one object to another.  Using unifix cubes as our weights, students were challenged to find items that weighed the same as eight cubes, were heavier than five cubes, or were lighter than ten cubes.  It took some trial and error, but students worked in teams to finish their explorations.

 At the end, students were challenged to find five items, and explore ways to weigh them to determine which was the lightest, which was the heaviest, and order the items by weight.  One student remarked "I thought that the smallest item was the heaviest, but it was actually the second-heaviest!" 

How would you use a balance scale to measure the weight of objects?