American Chemical Society
Using the Properties of Materials to Improve a Model Boat
Work together to stay afloat. Using a paper boat, pupils connect properties of materials to their usefulness. They test different paper to determine how many pennies each boat will hold and learn that combining materials with different...
Curated OER
Ships 2: What Floats Your Boat?
Students design, build, and test the specifications (water displacement and load line) for a model boat. The instructional activity focuses especially on integrating design principles with inquiry-based experimental skills.
Curated OER
What Floats Your Boat?
This open-ended boat building exercise is meant to be part of a three-lesson series on ships. Links to the other two lessons are included. This particular part is mostly a group lab activity in which they build a boat, find its load line...
Curated OER
Dragon Boats
Students create a model boat. In this art instructional activity, students identify what makes a boat float and use milk cartons to create their own boat.
Curated OER
Basil Heatter, "The Long Night of the Little Boats"
“It was a miracle.” Basil Heatter’s “The Long Night of the Little Boats,” which details the miraculous rescue of the British army from the shores of Dunkirk in 1940, is featured in a series of exercises that ask class members to read,...
Teach Engineering
Rock and Boat
Present the class with a question on whether the water level of a pond will rise they take a large rock out of a boat and drop it into the pond. Groups come down on all sides of the question and try to justify their answers. The activity...
Curated OER
Creating the Ideal Cargo Boat
Students build boats out of clay to test the buoyancy of the boat in water. Students break into pairs and construct their boat to specific guide lines, then experiment with their boat in the water.
Science Friday
Make a Model of a Home Made From Shipping Containers
Build a scale model of a home built out of shipping containers. A hands-on activity has scholars watch a video about a home built from shipping containers and then design their own home. They build scale models of their designed homes...
Curated OER
Gift for the Indians: Model of the Mayflower in the Ocean
Students build a miniature replica of the Mayflower. They make the boat float in a cup of water while studying the concept of gift giving on Feast Day.
Curated OER
Building Boats
Students research different types of boats in various time periods and cultures. Then they locate photographs and information about construction details of one type of boat. Students also use their research as the basis for designing and...
Curated OER
Boat Hull Design
Working in small groups students develop three alternative boat designs. They discuss the rationale for the type of hull, propeller, location of ballast, and type of building material used in their design. They build their boat.
Memorial Art Gallery
Art Alive! - Towing a Boat, Honfleur
Color, light and shadow, the placement and size of objects. These are some of the tools artists used to tell their stories. Model for learners how to read a painting by closely examining these features. The richly detailed packet...
Curated OER
Transportation Then and Now
Compare and contrast how transportation has changed throughout the years. This image-driven slide show depicts a variety of advances in transportation. Covered wagons, coaches, trolley cars, boats, and bikes are shown as they were in the...
Curated OER
Fluid Friction
Students, using wood blocks and model boats, investigate how the shape of an object affects friction it encounters as it is drawn through a towing tank.
Curated OER
Solve a Problem: Build a Boat
Students build a boat that float and hold as many pennies as possible, then discuss the process of building the boat and relate the experience to experiences they encounter in life.
Curated OER
Model Boats
Learners analyze pictures of boats, jet skis, submarines, and marine animals. They explore what shapes move easily through water and determine how boats stay upright. Drawings and photographs of boats are collected by the pupils. They...
Curated OER
Measure for Measure
Young mathematicians work to recognize the relationship between their scale models of the Joides research vessel and the real vessel. They calculate the relationships between various parts of the ship using fractions, ratios, and...
Curated OER
Modeling the Rock Cycle
In this modeling the rock cycle worksheet, students use a sugar cube to show the phases and changes in the rock cycle as represented by the changes in the sugar cube. For each step of the experiment students indicate the part of the rock...
Curated OER
Scaling Down, Scaling Up
Students understand the meaning of scale and calculate various problems related to Cyberchase videos. In this scaling lesson plan, students measure a Proporciona boat using blades of grass. Students calculate dimensions based on a scale...
Curated OER
Travel the Nile
Students create a game board that lists the cities along the Nile River with markers of boats, cars, camels, feet, train, etc.
Curated OER
What Floats Your Boat?
Students explore the principles of buoyancy and Archimedes' Principle and design their own flotation device. They compare the dimensions of a model to the real object to determine scale and analyze the models to suggest improvements.
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: 6th Grade Math – Claim 4
Develop a model for prep. The resource provides examples of how items reflect modeling and data analysis for Smarter Balanced assessments. Items use on-grade or below-grade content to focus on the modeling aspect. The questions revolve...
Poetry4kids
How to Write a Tongue Twister
Betty Botter and Theophilus Thistle provide models for willy writers to wrestle words into tricky tongue twisters.
Curated OER
Density Derby
Young scholars explore the relationship between mass, volume and density. They use model boats to discover how changing mass and volume affect density. This is a very engaging lesson which provides great demonstrations and hands-on...