5th graders at Dixie work with different materials to discover what makes things more buoyant and will make the best material for a boat. They design a boat that will hold the most coins. Day one they watched a brain pop video on buoyancy and spend time testing materials: foil, plaseic spoons, clay, craft sticks, wax paper, Styrofoam cups, toothpicks, and straws. Day two they design, build, and test their boats...
6 Comments
Liz Naughton
2/8/2016 08:21:46 am
The students all gravitated to the foil because it was the easiest to use and the quickest to get floating. They didn't try very hard with the clay because it didn't immediately float. Next time, I'd require the use of clay so that the students would have to work with it and apply some engineering practices to get it to float and not take on water.
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RCTM
2/11/2016 04:20:30 pm
Look like an interesting lesson. It will be fun to see how the clay works next year
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Mary-Clare Neal
2/24/2016 03:15:30 pm
I really like how this lesson was split over two days, with the first day students discovering the buoyancy of different materials. I bet it led to interesting conversations among groups about what materials to use for their boats!
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2/25/2016 08:37:42 pm
I usually do a lab like this with my 8th graders during our density and buoyancy lessons. Students had to create a boat with very limited materials that would hold the most weight before sinking. Liz, I like your idea about requiring clay and I think I will run with that idea... I am thinking I will give the kids a small amount and see if they can figure out what shape it needs to be to hold x-amount of weight without sinking. Then I will throw in some density calculation comparisons so they can see that the overall density of the clay changes when the shape changes. That has been a difficult concept for the kids!
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2/29/2016 05:20:32 pm
I liked the discovery part of your lesson on day one. I found some plasticine so I am going to make boats in math lab.
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Sarah Horky
5/12/2016 09:39:44 am
Very useful information. I liked that you set it up into two separate days. The video definitely helped to reach everyone in your class! I did this activity with my class but we did not use clay only foil, paper and plastic cups. I want to try it using clay as it would be a more creative outlet for many of the kids and give a different buoyance for the kids to test.
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