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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

What Floats Your Boat?

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Learners are introduced to the concept of buoyancy. The Video used in this lesson demonstrates and explains the characteristics of objects that sink and float. It presents the concepts of displacement, weight, and buoyancy.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Barge Building: What Floats Your Boat?

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Students construct aluminum foil boats that float while holding the greatest number of pennies. They investigate the concept of water displacement, record their results, and watch a Bill Nye video on buoyancy.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

I've Got That Sinking Feeling

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students design a simple boat and predict how much weight it can carry. They should also discover why objects float or sink and how this can be determined experimentally. A great lesson on buoyancy!
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Floating and Falling Flows

For Teachers 6th - 9th
Students discover fluid dynamics related to buoyancy through experimentation and optional photography. Using one set of fluids, they make light fluids rise through denser fluids. Using another set, they make dense fluids sink through a...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Creating the Ideal Cargo Boat

For Teachers 5th - 7th
  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.   
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Thermo and Fluid Dynamics of a Homemade "Lava Lamp"

For Teachers 9th - 12th
High schoolers construct their own lava lamp using simple substances. In this physics lesson, students explain how difference in density causes convection. They solve for forces and buoyancy using mathematical equations.
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Lesson Plan
Alabama Learning Exchange

Who Sank the Boat?

For Teachers 5th
Fifth graders experiment with student-made aluminum boats to test for buoyancy. They design a boat and determine how many marbles it takes to sink it while recording their data in a spreadsheet. They design a graph using the data and...
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Lesson Plan
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Teach Engineering

What Floats Your Boat?

For Teachers 7th - 9th Standards
Clay's as good a material as any to build a boat, right? An introductory lesson sets the stage for two activities associated with buoyancy. The first involves building boats out of clay, while the second uses these boats to measure the...
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Unit Plan
Illinois Valley Community College

STEM Activities for Middle School Students

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Use STEM activities within the class to provide connections to concepts. The resource includes activities that range from working with buoyancy to building rockets and launching them. Other activities involve the engineering design...
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Activity
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Teach Engineering

Clay Boats

For Teachers 7th - 9th Standards
Clay itself sinks, but clay boats float. Why? Young engineers build clay boats to learn about buoyancy. They test the weight the boats can hold using washers and then tweak their designs to make improvements, following the engineering...
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Unit Plan
Arizona State University

Physics of Boats

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
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 on a...
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Lesson Plan
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Center for Learning in Action

Properties of Balls

For Teachers 2nd - 5th Standards
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. 
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Lesson Plan
Discovery Education

Future Fleet

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
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...
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Worksheet
Curated OER

Buoyancy-Why Things Float

For Students 8th - 10th
In this buoyancy worksheet, students read about the principles behind objects floating including density, buoyancy and Archimedes' Principle. Students complete a buoyancy lab where they use a balloon and water and a film canister and...
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Organizer
Curated OER

Buoyancy

For Students 7th - 12th
In this buoyancy worksheet, students read about why objects float or sink. Students apply the Archimedes' Principle in a buoyancy lab. Students complete 1 graphic organizer.
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Worksheet
Curated OER

Density and Buoyancy

For Students 8th - 10th
In this density and buoyancy worksheet, students read about the equation to find density and practice finding the density of substances. They read about buoyancy and match 10 terms with their definitions related to density, buoyancy and...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

What Floats Your Boat?

For Teachers 6th - 10th
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.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Freshwater/Saltwater "Eggs-Periment"

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students explore water properties by conducting a class experiment. In this buoyancy instructional activity, students utilize freshwater, saltwater, plastic cups, hard boiled eggs and food coloring to experiment with the floating...
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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...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

A Weighty Issue

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Want to get your students motivated in science class? Given only a piece of aluminum foil, assign groups the task of designing a "barge" that will support the weight of a bunch of pennies.  The group who is able to put the most pennies...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Playing With Science

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Young scientists investigate the scientific concepts and principles that help make common toys such as hula hoops, yo-yos, slinkies, and silly putty work. As a class, they read "Backyard Rocket Science, Served Wet" to get a look behind...
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Lesson Plan
American Chemical Society

Comparing the Density of an Object to the Density of Water

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Investigators construct a makeshift balance and compare equal volumes of wax and water. They do the same for clay and water. Then they discover whether the wax and clay will float or sink in water. Ultimately this is a comparison of...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Density and Buoyancy Lesson Plan

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students investigate why some objects float or sink in water. In this physics lesson, students calculate the density of clay ball using a mathematical equation. They write a complete lab report about the experiment.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Come On Down!

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Begin with an introduction to famous deep-sea submersibles. Learners work in groups to gather information on different vessels and then share with the class. Each group then uses water displacement to help calculate the density of...

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