Lesson Plan
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Teach Engineering

Floaters and Sinkers

For Teachers 7th - 9th Standards
Whatever floats your boat. Young engineers learn about density by measuring the masses and volumes of boxes filled with different materials. Using their knowledge of densities, they hypothesize whether objects with given densities will...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Grand Designs And Great Failures

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students extend their understanding of floating, sinking, density, and buoyancy and apply it to the design and testing of ships. students discover that most ships are constructed very similarly-whether they are schooners or destroyers.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Ships 3: Grand Designs And Great Failures

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students engage in this, the third in a three-part series on ships. The overall lesson series is designed to allow students to extend their understanding of floating, sinking, density, and buoyancy and apply it to the design and testing...
Lesson Plan
DiscoverE

Foil Boats

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
How many pennies can an aluminum foil boat hold? That is the challenge in a collaborative activity designed to explore the concept of buoyancy. Learners use aluminum foil to build makeshift boats and test the weight they hold before...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Liquid Rainbow

For Teachers 2nd - 5th
Students develop their own techniques for drawing a small sample of solutions into a straw. They hypothesize ways to increase the density of water, and discuss how salt-free rainwater tends to float on top of salty seawater.
Activity
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Teach Engineering

Clay Boats

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

Exploring Buoyancy

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Learners use materials found at a resource table to design simple devices that will house instruments to take water samples from a tub of water. They design 3 instruments, each varying in density so that one will float, one will hover...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Pumpkin Science

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders examine pumpkins and use the scientific method to explore its contents.  In this Pumpkin Science instructional activity, 4th graders measure pumpkins for circumference. Students dress as if they were in a lab and work...
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...
Activity
Exploratorium

Bubble Suspension

For Teachers 5th - 9th
Create a cushion of carbon dioxide gas to float some soap bubbles on. Many concepts can be demonstrated through this activity: Carbon dioxide gas is more dense than air Bubbles are semipermeable, allowing only carbon dioxide to diffuse...
Unit Plan
Arizona State University

Physics of Boats

For Teachers 9th - 12th
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...
Activity
PBS

Watercraft

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Whatever floats your boat—with some additional weight. The first activity in a five-part series challenges pupils to design a boat to hold pennies. Using the design process, learners design, build, and test their boats, making sure they...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Radical Raisins!

For Teachers K - 1st
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...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Interactive Writing

For Teachers 1st
First graders write about vehicles that float using the interactive writing procedure.
Worksheet
Curated OER

Density Laboratory Gizmo

For Students 4th - 6th
In this mass worksheet, learners fill in a chart with different items and their volume, whether they float or sink, and their density. Students complete this for 10 items and answer 6 multiple choice mass questions.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Day Two: Generating New Questions

For Teachers 7th - 8th
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...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Why Cheerios Don't Sink

For Teachers 8th - 10th
Students investigate Archimedes' Principle and show how it relates to density. In this Archimedes' Principle lesson plan, students experiment with a beaker of water, a Styrofoam "boat" and a weight. They predict what will happen when the...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Role of Density in Sinking or Floating: Relational Causality

For Teachers Higher Ed
Students watch the teacher do a demonstration of density with diet and regular soda. Note: try this first, as different types of artificial sweetener have different densities. Students discuss density and volume. They discuss "Relational...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Sink or Float?

For Teachers K - 5th
Students predict and explore to discover which objects sink or float in fresh and salt water, predict how salt affect objects, write predictions on T chart, discuss difference between man-made and natural waters, and graph results.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Float or Sink?

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students examine why some objects float while others do not. They place various objects in water to observe their floating capability. Students record the object, its weight, and if the object floated. They construct a graph plotting...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Float My Boat

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders, in groups, experiment with density and the displacement of water by creating and designing their own boats and seeing which boat holds the most centimeter cubes without sinking..
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Weight in Water

For Teachers 3rd - 4th
Students investigate why some materials are able to float while others sink. They carry out a scientific investigation, predict and test their predictions. They record their results in a spreadsheet, and use a forcemeter in another...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Density

For Teachers 9th
Ninth graders predict when an object will sink or float based on comparison of the density of the object to the density of the substance in which it is placed.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Designing and Floating Boats

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Middle schoolers participate in an experiment to determine if a toy boat will sink or float. They make the boats out of different materials and determine its carrying capacity by adding pennies. They graph their findings on a classroom...

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