Children in School-age 2 had a fun science experiment with clay and water. We started by asking the children what do they know about density and water. Sofia said, “if the density of anything is high, it sinks and if the density is low, it floats on the water. We had two different plasticine objects that we made, a ball and a boat and we raised the question, “do you think any of these two will float?” and most of them said that the balls would sink while the boat would float. So, we went ahead and gave it a try. First, we placed the large ball in the water and it floated. Everyone simultaneously cheered, “woohoo! It did not sink” “but why”. We proceeded to put the boat in the water and it floated too and it raised even more questions. Now was the time to answer all of their questions. We explained the phenomenon that happened there, whenever you put any object in the water, that object displaces the same amount of water around the object and that displaced water creates a pressure in water to upwards side that makes the things float and sink. When we placed an empty boat, it displaced more water than the boat’s own weight and that is why it floated. The large ball floated because of the same reason because the water that it displaced was more than the ball’s own weight. Now we asked, when do they think the boat might sink? They answered, “maybe when the boat weight goes up”. So, we grabbed a bag of beads and asked them to take turns and put one tablespoon of beads in the boat and let’s see how many tablespoons would it take to sink down. Fred guessed one while Kayleb guessed two. Three of the girls discussed it and decided that it would maximum take three tablespoons. We poured one tbsp of beads, nothing happened; then came the second and our boat sank a little but still afloat, third tablespoon and the boat sank a little more but still on the water. Children were amazed to see it. Then went the fourth tablespoon in and our boat completely sank in the water. We explained when the weight in the boat exceeded than the amount of water it displaced around, it sinks down. It was a fun, inclusive and practical hands-on learning activity which educated the children about the amazing science that’s behind the phenomenon, and how the volume, density and force acts and works.
