Last week, we discovered adding salt to water can affect buoyancy and even make a blue bead that sunk in water float in salt water.
This week, we explored clay. Could we make it float? If we did not change the water, was there a way to change the object to make it float?
Students saw the clay sink to the bottom. Then they were asked to test out if they could make it sink. One clever student said "float like a boat." Another tried to flatten the clay to make it float. Others surprised me with their determination, breaking the clay into little bits to see if maybe smaller pieces would float. Another wowed me with her imagination, deciding maybe her clay was a submarine and therefore at the bottom of the ocean.
I demonstrated then how to flatten my clay, make edges pinching corners and then carefully placed my clay in the water. It DID float. Students eagerly returned to work on making their own boats of clay float on the water. One child further tested her boat's buoyancy by placing a few pieces of clay in her boat to see if the extra weight would make it sink.
It was so much fun to see the children very engaged in the activity. Hopefully in the end, they learned a little bit about buoyancy.
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