Sink or Float

Last week Max and Emmett made a ship out of Lego pieces. They decided that they wanted to see if their ship would sink or float in water. This sparked a lot of interest with their classmates. We brought in different materials to experiment with. We asked the students to make a prediction for each item. Will it sink or float? We began talking about which materials would always sink and which would float. We found out that metal sinks and plastic items float. We also learned that heavy items may sink and light items may float.

Since our sink or float inquiry started with two friends making a ship we decided to bring in different materials for everyone to build their own boat. We learned from this experiment that tin foil, styrofoam and foam pieces float and cardboard will absorb water and start to sink.