Learners design, build, and test the specifications (water displacement and load line) for a model boat. The lesson focuses especially on integrating design principles with inquiry-based experimental skills.

Students extend their understanding of floating, sinking, density, and buoyancy and apply it to the design and testing of ships. students discover that most ships are constructed very similarly-whether they are schooners or destroyers.

Students design and construct a boat out of aluminum foil and a few other simple materials. The boats then be tested by floating them in water, then adding mass until they sink. They explore the various shapes of boat construction.

Fifth graders investigate buoyancy by conducting a science experiment.  In this water properties lesson, 5th graders predict which of their different paper boat designs will float for the longest period.  Students conduct the...

Students research inventors and inventions and their impacts. In this invention lesson plan, students research inventions and their affects in good and bad ways.