PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Buoyancy Brainteasers: Buoyancy Question
This interactive brainteaser from the NOVA: "Voyage of Doom" Web site challenges you to figure out what causes an object to sink.
University of Colorado
University of Colorado: Ph Et Interactive Simulations: Balloons & Buoyancy
Experiment with a helium balloon, a hot air balloon, or a rigid sphere filled with different gases. Discover what makes some balloons float and others sink.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Mn Step: Sinking Water: Glaciers, Ocean Currents and Weather Patterns
A lesson where students learn how warm water is less dense than cold water, and what this means for global climate change as ice from the polar regions melts. Students will do experiments in buoyancy and water density when hot or cold,...
Utah Education Network
Uen: Sink or Float
Predict and test everyday objects as to whether they sink or float.
University of Colorado
University of Colorado: Ph Et Interactive Simulations: Balloons & Buoyancy
Students studying buoyancy will better understand its concepts with this virtual experiment using various balloons and testing what makes them float or sink.
PBS
Pbs: Buoyancy Basics
NOVA explores the basic principle of buoyancy. Also included at this site are some interesting brain-teasers related to the topic.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: "Does It Float?" an Inquiry Based Activity Investigating Buoyancy
This is an inquiry-based activity in which students will need to work together as a class to solve the following problem: they must construct a "boat" entirely out of modeling clay that is capable of supporting 150 grams of cargo without...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Floating and Falling Flows
Students discover fluid dynamics related to buoyancy through experimentation and optional photography. Using one set of fluids, they make light fluids rise through denser fluids. Using another set, they make dense fluids sink through a...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Investigating Buoyancy, Density, and Fluid Principles: Make Mini Submarine
In this lab, students will use the scientific method to design an experiment that explains how/why a submarine floats and sinks.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: What Floats Your Boat?
Students use modeling clay, a material that is denser than water and thus ordinarily sinks in water, to discover the principle of buoyancy. They begin by designing and building boats out of clay that will float in water, and then refine...
Museum of Science
Museum of Science and Industry: Online Science: Design a Submarine
Become an engineer, and design a submarine that moves in the water like a real submarine. Try making it sink, float, and hover in the water.
Mocomi & Anibrain Digital Technologies
Mocomi: Buoyancy
Ever wonder why/how things float? This concept is called buoyancy. Take this interactive journey to learn and understand how and why certain materials float and others sink to the ocean floor.
Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education, Stevens Institute of Technology
Stevens Institute of Technology: Buoyancy Simulation
By choosing the mass, size, and time, students can experiment with whether the block floats or sinks in this simulation. Students have the option to display the forces and add a second block to the tank. Density is also shown to allow...
![The Engineering Place: Balloon Flinking [Pdf] Lesson Plan](https://content.lessonplanet.com/knovation/original/172615-2de503a48a3b9f1faaa61527a0b2e7e4.jpg?1661554798 "The Engineering Place: Balloon Flinking [Pdf] Lesson Plan")
Google
The Engineering Place: Balloon Flinking [Pdf]
A lesson and activity sheet on buoyancy. Students add weight to a helium-filled balloon to keep it suspended so that it won't float or sink, but instead will 'flink.'
Other
National Engineers Week Foundation: Flinker
Students investigate with common objects to see if they can make something that neither floats nor sinks, but rather "flinks" in the middle.
Texas Education Agency
Texas Gateway: Ap Physics: Fluid Statics: Archimedes' Principle
By the end of this section, you will be able to define buoyant force, state Archimedes' principle, understand why objects float or sink, and understand the relationship between density and Archimedes' principle.
OpenStax
Open Stax: Physics: Archimedes' Principle
From a chapter on Fluid Statics in a Physics textbook. This section of the chapter provides a detailed discussion of Archimedes' principle, buoyant force, floating and sinking, and the role of density. Includes questions, problems and...
PBS
Pbs Teachers: Scientific American: Beneath the Sea: Blowing Ballast
Explore the use of ballast to manipulate buoyancy in submarines by building a model of a submersible using two-liter bottles and balloons. Describe the balance of forces that is responsible for the surfacing and diving of submersibles.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Floaters and Sinkers
Through this curricular unit, students are introduced to the important concept of density. The focus is on the more easily understood densities of solids, but students may also explore the densities of liquids and gases. Students devise...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Floaters and Sinkers
This lesson introduces learners to the important concept of density. The focus is on the more easily understood densities of solids, but students can also explore the densities of liquids and gases. Learners devise methods to determine...
Science is Fun
Science Is Fun: The Cartesian Diver
A simple experiment in buoyancy where you discover how to make a packet of sauce or candy float or sink at will, and why you are able to do this.
PBS
Pbs Teachers: Submarine Race Experiment
Balance the force of gravity with the force of the expanding gasses created by mixing baking soda and vinegar. Create a soda bottle submarine that sinks to the bottom of the bathtub and then rises back to the surface.
Science is Fun
Science Is Fun: Dancing Raisins
An experiment in buoyancy which involves making raisins float by using carbonated soda pop. Students then try the same test with other materials. Instructions for making one's own carbonated liquid are also provided.
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Teaching Measurement: Literature and Manipulatives
The tradebook, Who Sank the Boat? by Pamela Allen, is an excellent tool in teaching measurement. Young scholars will engage in activities involving different types of measurement. In the story, five animal friends decide to take a boat...