Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Sink or Swim

For Teachers 1st - 5th
Learners explore sinking and floating.  In this buoyancy lesson, students conduct an investigation dealing with regular and diet soda. Learners drop various soda cans into water and then discuss why some float and some sink. 
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Does Soap Float?

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students form hypotheses and carry out an investigation in order to answer a central question: Does soap float? The focus of this lesson plan is on scientific inquiry, but it incorporates scientific topics such as sinking and floating.
Unit Plan
Arizona State University

Physics of Boats

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Let's go sailing! An instructive unit includes six lessons with multiple activities to teach scholars about density, center of gravity, buoyancy, and the Archimedes Principle. They can complete the final project of building a boat...
Activity
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Teach Engineering

Above-Ground Storage Tank Design Project

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
The challenge: determine whether a tank will float. A design activity has groups work as engineering teams in order to determine the stability of given tanks and liquid contents. The teams need to determine the equations to...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Activity: Float a Clay Boat

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Written to introduce pupils to buoyancy, this activity has collaborative groups work to design a floatable clay boat. They first observe that a stick of clay sinks in water and then are given their own stick to reshape into a floating...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Buoyancy Factor

For Teachers 7th - 8th
Students examine why some objects float in water while others sink and the ability of something to float does not depend entirely on its weight. Archimedes' principle is introduced and buoyant force is discussed. Practice calculations...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Buoyancy

For Teachers 3rd - 7th
Students look at clippings of boats. They are able to define the following terms displacement, and density. Students construct a clay boat. After they complete their clay boat students answer questions about their clay boats.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Immiscible Liquids and Density

For Teachers 3rd - 6th
Students will make a lava lamp. For this density lesson, students will combine water and oil and make observations, then add salt to the oil and observe the oil sink, then float again when the salt dissolves in the water.
Activity
Exploratorium

Bubble Suspension

For Teachers 5th - 9th
Create a cushion of carbon dioxide gas to float some soap bubbles on. Many concepts can be demonstrated through this activity: Carbon dioxide gas is more dense than air Bubbles are semipermeable, allowing only carbon dioxide to diffuse...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Sink or Float?

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students analyze the relationship between density, buoyancy, and salinity. In this chemical properties lesson, students read a background activity for the lesson and experiments to the topics. Students discuss the questions and complete...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Come On Down!

For Teachers 7th - 8th
Young scholars research the implementation of a research vessel used for ocean exploration.  In buoyancy lesson students will construct a device that shows neutral buoyancy.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

How Does the USS Alabama Float?

For Teachers 3rd - 6th
Students investigate buoyancy. For this buoyancy lesson, students apply the Archimedes Principle of Buoyancy to the experiment conducted in class to determine how battleships float.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Diving Raisins

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students hypothesize and observe what occurs when raisins are dropped in a carbonated liquid. They examine buoyancy and how density effects ascent and descent.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Condiment Diver: The World's Simplest Cartesian Diver

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students examine buoyancy.  In this density activity students form a hypothesis, collect data and draw a conclusion using the data. 
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Day Six: Floater What Ifs

For Teachers 10th - 11th
Students observe earth science by examining results from an experiment. In this buoyancy instructional activity, students practice floating different items in two different liquids and identify why certain objects will float and others...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Day Two: Generating New Questions

For Teachers 7th - 8th
Students investigate buoyancy by participating in a lab experiment. In this density lesson, students utilize vinegar and alcohol in beakers and attempt to float different items in them. Students analyze which items float and do not while...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Chemistry: The Case of the Sunken Ice Cube

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students examine a density demonstration involving ice cubes and beakers of water and alcohol. After observing how one ice cube floats in water and sinks in alcohol, they determine which mixture of the two would suspend the ice cube in...
Worksheet
Curated OER

Cartesian Diver Lab

For Students 6th - 8th
In this Cartesian diver lab, students explain using text and diagrams how the Cartesian diver works. Students evaluate ways in making their lab design better. Students make predictions of how changing the variable would change the...
Unit Plan
Curated OER

Earth: The Water Planet

For Teachers 6th
Students elicit data on the water cycle, ocean topography, and island formation in this six lesson unit. The ocean floor and the properties of water are examined through a variety of discussions and hands-on experiments.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Floating Pencil

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Students discover how salt water makes a pencil float better than freshwater by measuring and comparing the lengths of the portion of the pencil that floats above the water surface. They then determine if an unknown water sample is...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Weight of Water

For Teachers K - 3rd
Students examine how salt water is more dense than fresh water. They discuss how manatees need to float and sink, conduct a sink or float experiment, and conduct an experiment with eggs and salt and fresh water.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Sink or Float?

For Teachers K - 2nd
Learners make and test predictions about sinking and floating, and classify objects according to whether they sink or float.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Fishy Physics

For Teachers 4th - 9th
Students explore how fish are able to move easily from one depth to another in water.  In this fish lesson students create their own balloon fish. 
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

It's a Gas - Natural Gas

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Students use plastic bottles, water, and condiment packets to simulate how natural gas comes from decaying ocean plants and animals. In this natural gas lesson plan, students also fill out lab packets and answer exit questions.

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