Buoyant Boats

Scholars build a boat using an assortment of materials such as foam plates, aluminum foil, and skewers, then test its buoyancy with pennies. Challenge boat builders to construct the strongest or fastest boat in a healthy competition with...

Youngsters are introduced to the basic principles and uses of the wheel and the axle. They come up with every day examples of simple machines and look into why the wheel and the axle are best-used as a paired machine instead of used...

Get things moving with this elementary science unit on simple machines. Through a series of nine lessons including teacher demonstrations, hands-on activities, and science experiments, young scientists learn about forces, motion, and...

Fifth graders apply the concepts they know regarding mass, volume and density in the previous activities to design a boat. Student teams must make a boat which can travel the waters of the Amazon Rainforest. Each group makes a...

Experiment with mass and density as scholars figure out what makes things float or sink. First, they watch a podcast introducing these concepts. Be sure to use the comprehension question to test their understanding. Young scientists...

Will a grape float in oil? Will a metal nut sink in corn syrup? Watch as the ZOOM cast tests the buoyancy of a variety of liquids and objects. [4:22]

This open-ended boat building exercise is meant to be part of a three-lesson series on ships. Links to the other two lessons are included. This particular part is mostly a group lab activity in which they build a boat, find its load line...

Introduce your class to the concept of sinking and floating. In groups, they classify objects after making predictions about which materials will sink or float. They record their results and create graphs and charts to share with the class.

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...

Fourth graders explore the concept of mass and buoyancy. After building boats out of several materials, they predict whether each boat floats if certain objects are added. Students test their predictions and draw conclusions from their...