Each student uses a small quantity of modeling clay to make a boat that will float in a tub of water. The object is to build a boat that will hold as much weight as possible without sinking. In the process of designing and testing their...

Hands-on challenge to build an unsinkable boat out of straws and plastic wrap that can hold twenty five pennies. Provides full list of materials with ideas on how to build, test, evaluate, and redesign it if necessary. Also, includes...

Young scholars 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...

Students explore material properties in hands-on and visually evident ways via the Archimedes' principle. First, they design and conduct an experiment to calculate densities of various materials and present their findings to the class....