Sink or Float
TEKS Objective
The student is expected to measure, test, and record physical properties of matter, including temperature, mass, magnetism, and the ability to sink or float.
Essential Understanding
The student knows that matter has measurable physical properties and those properties determine how matter is classified, changed, and used.
Science Background
Archimedes’ Principle: Oracle ThinkQuest (website) - Information about Archimedes, the Greek mathematician and inventor who created the natural law of buoyancy, and a description of the law itself.
Archimedes' Principle
Oracle ThinkQuest
Archimedes Principle: UKDivers (website) - Explains, density, specific gravity, how Archimedes’ Principle of buoyancy determines whether different items will sink or float.
Archimedes Principle
UKDivers, www.ukdivers.net
Why Do Astronauts Practice Underwater? NASA (video) - Learn how NASA uses neutral buoyancy to train astronauts.
Why Do Astronauts Practice Underwater?
Brainbites, NASA, www.brainbites.nasa.gov
NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory: NASA (website) - Introduction to NASA’s underwater training for astronauts.
Signature Lesson
Sink or Float? Science NetLinks (website) - Students measure, test, record information and predict whether certain objects will sink or float, and classify the objects based on their findings.
- Supporting Lessons
- Extensions
- Assessment Ideas
- Literature Connections
- Related
TEKS - Additional Resources
Supporting Lessons
Buoyant Boats: Science NetLinks (website) - Students construct boats from aluminum foil.
Buoyant Boats
Science NetLinks, www.sciencenetlinks.com
Float, Sink, Flink! Learn NC (website) - Activities challenge students to create things that neither sink nor float. Students discover that an object’s bouyancy depends not only on the properties of the object itself, but on the properties of the fluid in which it is situated.
Elaboration Lessons and Extensions
Sink or Float: Brain Pop Jr. (website) - Background information and activities that teach the concepts of sinking, floating, displacement, etc.
Sink or Float
Brain Pop, www.brainpop.com
Does Soap Float? Science NetLinks (website) - Students create a hypothesis and conduct an experiment to find out if soap floats.
Assessment Ideas
Collect a group of various common objects (marbles, wood block, foam, rock, pencil, pill bottle filed with sand, etc.). Have students examine the objects and predict which will float, which will sink and why. Test students’ predictions by placing each item in a container of water.
Literature Connections
Physics: Why Matter Matters! Green, D. (ISBN-13: 978-0753462140)
Dive! Dive! Dive! Buoyancy. Thomas, I. (ISBN-13: 978-1410925886)
Experiments with Water: Water and Buoyancy. Oxlade, C. (ISBN-13: 978-1432923204)
Will It Float or Sink? Stewart, Melissa (ISBN-13: 978-0516237374)
Floating and Sinking. Niz, Ellen (ISBN-13: 978-0736869386)
Who Sank the Boat? Allen, Pamela (ISBN-13: 978-0698113732)
Additional Resources
Float and Sink: BBC (website) - Interactive online game in which young students explore basic concepts of sinking and floating.
TEKS Navigation
Grade 3
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