Buoyancy Bonanza!!

Our 5th graders have been challenged and have passed with flying colors. We have been learning about how variables are used to conduct and test experiments. We learned about how Archimedes discovered the principles of Buoyancy and we have put them to work in our classroom. First we discussed carrying capacity and why boats are built with a purpose and a limit to how many people and items they can hold. We then tested our own "boats" in the classroom and reviewed our results of our "passenger" tests. Our passengers being pennies were placed inside our floating "boats" and we counted the capacity by using the number of pennies the boats carried before sinking to the bottom.
This week we are finishing our boat challenge by constructing and testing our own home made boats. Each student was given a 12"by 12" piece of foil and constructed their own boat to hold as many passengers as possible. They came up with many creative designs and most have been holding well over 100 passengers!!!!!
As we wrap up this phase of construction we are now going to focus on the experimental design process as we head into our experimentation in the AIR!!! Flight will be our next step and the discoveries to be made are just as exciting as those we have had thus far.