Curated OER
Buoyant Boats
Learners 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.
Curated OER
Build Your Own Submarine
Students construct their own submarine following a certain procedure. In this physics lesson, students calculate the density of objects using a mathematical formula. They explain why some object floats in water while some do not.
Curated OER
Big Enough?
Students explore the concept of density and buoyancy. In this physics lesson, students discover the different factors that affect an object's density and buoyancy in water. Students conduct several investigations to further understand...
Discovery Education
Future Fleet
Turn your pupils into engineers who are able to use scientific principals to design a ship. This long-term project expects pupils to understand concepts of density, buoyancy, displacement, and metacenter, and apply them to constructing a...
Center for Learning in Action
Properties of Balls
Enhance your states of matter lessons with a hands-on science investigation that compares six different balls' color, texture, size, weight, ability to bounce, and buoyancy.
Curated OER
The Buoyancy Factor
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...
Curated OER
Buoyancy: What will float and what will sink
Students write and explain why an object sinks or floats. In this buoyancy lesson plan students demonstrate how items float or sink and graph the results.
Curated OER
What Floats Your Boat?
Students discover the Archimedes principle through a buoyancy experiment. They measure the water displacement of a lump a clay which is denser than water then reshape the clay into a bowl which floats but displaces more water.
Curated OER
Archimedes' Principle
Students examine the relationship between density and buoyancy. In this physics lesson students use Archimedes' Principle to complete calculations on buoyancy and a lab activity.
Curated OER
Condiment Diver: The World's Simplest Cartesian Diver
Students examine buoyancy. In this density lesson students form a hypothesis, collect data and draw a conclusion using the data.
Curated OER
Concrete Canoes
Young scholars explore and analyze the relationship of buoyancy and displacement needed to make an object float. They examine various boat designs, then design and build clay and aluminum boats that hold a cargo of marbles.
Curated OER
Day Six: Floater What Ifs
Students observe earth science by examining results from an experiment. In this buoyancy lesson, students practice floating different items in two different liquids and identify why certain objects will float and others sink. Students...
Curated OER
Technology of the Deep: Experiments with Buoyant Forces
Students conduct a series of experiments to study the effects of temperature and salinity on the buoyancy of an object in water. They devise ways to make floating and sinking objects neutrally buoyant.
Curated OER
Day Two: Generating New Questions
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...
Reach Out!
Paper Clip Sailing
Students explain that some things can float on top of water because of what we call "surface tension." They see that if something happens to disturb these water molecules from tugging on each other, the skin-like surface breaks up.
Curated OER
Chemistry: The Case of the Sunken Ice Cube
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...
Curated OER
Float Your Boat
Students investigate buoyancy, displacement and density. In this flotation lesson students study the Archimedes' Principle, analyze data and draw conclusions.
Curated OER
Radical Raisins!
Students explore the concept of buoyancy through experimentation. Given materials of various weights and composition, they drop them in club soda and determine which substances sink or float. Students discuss their results in terms of...
Curated OER
How Wet Can You Get?
Students visit a swimming pool and brainstorm different water sports and what benefits swimming has over other types of exercise. They then discuss buoyancy and water pressure and when how objects sink or float before playing a game of...
Curated OER
Immiscible Liquids and Density
Young scholars will make a lava lamp. In 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.
Curated OER
Marine Debris
Students will perform experiments to examine if debris will float, or blow in the wind. They discuss the effects of these characteristics on marine debris.
Curated OER
Condiment Diver: The World's Simplest Cartesian Diver
Middle schoolers explain what density is in their own words. In this physics lesson, students perform the condiment experiment and explain why some float and some sink. They share their findings in class.
Curated OER
Give Me a Tall Ship
Sixth graders develop an understanding of floating, sinking, density, and buoyancy and apply it to the design of testing of ships.
Curated OER
Marine Debris
Students perform experiments to examine if debris float, or blow in the wind. The effects of these characteristics on the marine debris are then discussed. They determine how a material can influence what becomes marine debris.