Interactive
PBS

Pbs Learning Media: Floating and Sinking: Hot Air Balloons

For Students 9th - 10th
Why do hot air balloons float? This resource from the NOVA Web site offers a series of interactive activities that illustrates the physics of hot air balloons.
Activity
Science is Fun

Fun Science: Sinking and Floating Soda Cans

For Students 9th - 10th
Why do some pop cans float in water while others don't? This easy experiment is a great example of the principle of density.
Lesson Plan
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College

Serc: Water Activity

For Teachers K - 1st
Students investigate water by estimating how long it takes to freeze, then see if the ice cube will float in water, and eventually work with other items to see if they sink or float in water.
Lesson Plan
Utah Education Network

Uen: 1st Grade Act. 24: Interactive Writing

For Teachers K - 1st Standards
In this lesson, students will listen to nonfiction books about items that sink and float. Students will participate in filling in words to fill in a teacher-created chart that is connected to the information. Students will then write a...
Lesson Plan
Utah Education Network

Uen: 1st Grade Act. 01: Exploration Tubs

For Teachers K - 1st Standards
In this lesson, students will investigate different categories related to safety, organisms, sink or float, boats, seeds, and water droppers. Students will use exploration tubs to make observations.
Activity
Science is Fun

Fun Science: Bowling Balls: Sink or Float?

For Students 9th - 10th
For a dramatic illustration of density check out this demonstration. It's simple to do, only requiring a bowling ball and some water.
Lesson Plan
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College

Serc: Investigating Floating and Sinking: Density

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
This investigation introduces the concepts of volume, mass, and density and how they interact. Students will make predictions of whether an object will float or sink after finding mass and volume of an object.
Activity
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College

Serc: "Does It Float?" an Inquiry Based Activity Investigating Buoyancy

For Students 9th - 10th
This is an inquiry-based activity in which students will need to work together as a class to solve the following problem: they must construct a "boat" entirely out of modeling clay that is capable of supporting 150 grams of cargo without...
Activity
Other

National Engineers Week Foundation: Flinker

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Students investigate with common objects to see if they can make something that neither floats nor sinks, but rather "flinks" in the middle.
Unit Plan
Texas Education Agency

Texas Gateway: Ap Physics: Fluid Statics: Archimedes' Principle

For Students 11th - 12th
By the end of this section, you will be able to define buoyant force, state Archimedes' principle, understand why objects float or sink, and understand the relationship between density and Archimedes' principle.
Activity
Science Buddies

Science Buddies: How Much Weight Can Your Boat Float?

For Students 3rd - 8th
Have you ever wondered how a ship made of steel can float? In this project you'll investigate how much weight boat hulls of various shapes and sizes can support without sinking.
Activity
PBS

Pbs Learning Media: Buoyancy Brainteasers: Buoyancy Question

For Students 3rd - 8th
This interactive brainteaser from the NOVA: "Voyage of Doom" Web site challenges you to figure out what causes an object to sink.
Lesson Plan
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: What Floats Your Boat?

For Teachers 7th - 9th
Learners 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 refine...
Lesson Plan
National Association of Geoscience Teachers

Nagt: Density Mystery Canisters

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Students experiment with items that sink or float, and learn that water's density is equal to one, and objects/solutions with a density greater than one will sink, and those with a density less than one will float.
Lesson Plan
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College

Serc: Density of Solid Objects

For Teachers 9th - 10th
In this science inquiry, students investigate whether volume or density of objects determine the floating or sinking in water. Using a rock and a block of wood teachers engage students in the discussion of density, mass and volume.
Activity
Museum of Science

Museum of Science and Industry: Online Science: Design a Submarine

For Students 3rd - 9th
Become an engineer, and design a submarine that moves in the water like a real submarine. Try making it sink, float, and hover in the water.
Lesson Plan
Alabama Learning Exchange

Alex: Teaching Measurement: Literature and Manipulatives

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
The tradebook, Who Sank the Boat? by Pamela Allen, is an excellent tool in teaching measurement. Students will engage in activities involving different types of measurement. In the story, five animal friends decide to take a boat ride....
Activity
PBS

Pbs: Buoyancy Basics

For Students 3rd - 8th
NOVA explores the basic principle of buoyancy. Also included at this site are some interesting brain-teasers related to the topic.
Activity
TeachEngineering

Teach Engineering: 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...
Activity
American Chemical Society

Inquiry in Action: Changing the Density of an Object: Changing Shape

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Throughout the activities in this investigation, students may have wondered how a boat made out of steel, which is more dense than water, can float. This activity addresses that question. Students will see that changing the shape of an...
Lesson Plan
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College

Serc: Mn Step: Sinking Water: Glaciers, Ocean Currents and Weather Patterns

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
A lesson where students learn how warm water is less dense than cold water, and what this means for global climate change as ice from the polar regions melts. Students will do experiments in buoyancy and water density when hot or cold,...
Lesson Plan
Utah Education Network

Uen: Floating and Sinking Potatoes

For Teachers 6th
After the teacher puts pieces of potatoes in water and salt water, the students predict what is going to happen and try to name what makes this happen.
Lesson Plan
Google

The Engineering Place: Balloon Flinking [Pdf]

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
A lesson and activity sheet on buoyancy. Students add weight to a helium-filled balloon to keep it suspended so that it won't float or sink, but instead will 'flink.'
eBook
OpenStax

Open Stax: Physics: Archimedes' Principle

For Students 11th - 12th
From a chapter on Fluid Statics in a Physics textbook. This section of the chapter provides a detailed discussion of Archimedes' principle, buoyant force, floating and sinking, and the role of density. Includes questions, problems and...

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