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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

How Wet Can You Get?

For Teachers 5th - 9th
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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

What Floats Your Boat?

For Teachers 7th - 9th
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.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Rising Air

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students investigate the concept of rising air in the formation of clouds and precipitation. In this rising air instructional activity, students conduct an experiment with hot and cold water that shows how warm water rises due to thermal...
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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 instructional activity is on scientific inquiry, but it incorporates scientific topics such as sinking and...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Cold Hard Facts...What Inquiring Minds Will Know

For Teachers 7th - 12th
Students work with "ice" in order to gain a practical application of math concepts that evolve into an inquiry-based study. They determine if the dimensions of the ice make a difference in the way the ice floats in the water.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Build Your Own Submarine

For Teachers 9th - 12th
High schoolers construct their own submarine following a certain procedure. In this physics activity, students calculate the density of objects using a mathematical formula. They explain why some object floats in water while some do not.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Buoyancy: What will float and what will sink

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Students write and explain why an object sinks or floats.  In this buoyancy lesson students demonstrate how items float or sink and graph the results. 
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Aluminum Boats

For Teachers 2nd - 4th
Students study buoyancy with an in-class experiment.  In this water properties lesson plan, students create a boat from aluminum foil and float it in a bucket of water.  Students utilize coins to change the weight of the boat and record...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Insulation and Buoyancy

For Teachers K - 2nd
Students predict whether their hands be warmer in ice water with or without a blubber mitten. They construct a blubber mitten using plastic, Crisco and compare their results with a control group. They observe how this affects buoyancy too.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Give Me a Tall Ship

For Teachers 6th
Sixth graders develop an understanding of floating, sinking, density, and buoyancy and apply it to the design of testing of ships.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Floating Fishes: Fishing Expedition

For Teachers 4th - 8th
A referenced PowerPoint is not included, but this lesson can still make an impact with emerging environmentalists. After introducing them to the facts about overfishing, they experiment with a fishing simulation using colored beads and...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Hot Air Balloon

For Teachers 11th - 12th
Students view a video and discuss the mechanics of a hot air balloon. They, in groups, construct a functioning hot air balloon.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Pressure, Density and Buoyancy

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students investigate how changing pressure affects density. In this physics activity, students explain the relationship between density and pressure. They observe the Cartesian diver in the lab as pressure is changed inside.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Bathtub Physics - Density, Buoyancy and Flotation

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students study Archimedes' Principle, flotation and the reaction of buoyant forces and explain the relationship between density and flotation.
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Lesson Plan
Reach Out!

Paper Clip Sailing

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Young scholars 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.
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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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Floating Vegetables

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students design a craft that safely floats vegetables across a classroom. The teacher provides some materials, but the child may as well. As the experiment is created, they have to fill out worksheets to keep the actiivity organized....
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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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Ballast Systems in Submarines

For Teachers 9th - 12th
High schoolers investigate Ballast systems in submarines. In this ballast lesson plan, students conduct experiments that show how a Ballast system works. High schoolers will then create a model of a submarine's ballast system.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Science Lesson Plans

For Teachers 10th - 12th
Students conduct a variety of exploration activities on various science topics. In this science lesson plan outline, students design a cell encapsulation to hold a specific type of medicine. They give examples of physical and chemical...
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Teach Engineering

Archimedes' Principle, Pascal's Law and Bernoulli's Principle

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
What do Pascal's law, Archimedes' Principle, and Bernoulli's Principle have to do with fluid mechanics? The included PowerPoint presentation provides the basic definitions and equations associated with the three. A set of homework...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

To Float or Not to Float - Density

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Students experiment floating a variety of objects in various liquids. They discover how density affects the ability of an object to float and apply the concept of density to solve problems.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Antarctica: Effects of Salinity on Icebergs

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Learners investigate the effects of salinity on icebergs. For this hands on lesson, students design and conduct an investigation into how the amount of salt in ice affects its buoyancy.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Hitler's Lost Sub

For Teachers 5th - 12th
Students watch a video clip about German submarines lost during World War II. They work together to create their own submarine out of a plastic bottle. They test the buoyancy of the submarine in different activities.

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