“What happens when we drop a drop of water on a paper towel?” asked Mr. Moreno.
“It spreads out and makes a spot,” answered Arti.
Jessie said, “To see how many drops will cover the towel, we can drop water on a paper towel and count the number of drops until the whole towel is covered with water.”
Arti said, “That might work, but we would probably lose count.”
“Instead of trying to find how many drops the whole paper towel can absorb, we can first find out what happens when you drop just a few drops of water on a towel. If we know the number of drops and can measure the size of the spots, we can calculate the number of drops it will take to cover the whole paper towel. Let's start by making a list of things that we have to think about,” said Mr. Moreno.
After some discussion, their list looked like this:
