This is another experiment that you will most likely have all of the needed items laying around your home.
You will need:
Aluminum foil
scissors
tape (optional)
lots of pennies
a sink or bucket of water
We started out by talking about which boat we thought would hold more weight/pennies. I skinny tall one (like a cruise ship) or a wide short one (like a cargo ship). I let Abby decide which one she wanted to make. I had her grab a handful of pennies from her piggy bank, and I raided her dads change jar for all of his pennies. When we came back. I said, "whoever's boat holds the most pennies, gets to keep ALL the pennies!" That made her very excited and she obviously wanted to think this whole boat thing out. (Obviously, gambling is not a mandatory part of this project)
So, we made sure we pulled off the same amount of tin foil for each boat and got to work building our boats. Once we filled the sink about half full of water. we carefully sat our boats in and started placing pennies. 1 for each boat, 2 for each boat... I guess you don't have to count them all, but we wanted to. Then, keep going til one boat sinks.
Now for the "Sciencey" part!
Can you guess what we are learning here?
Density is the amount of mass something has, relative to it's volume.
So, in order to make something "buoyant", we need the object to be lighter than the amount of water it has to displace. Think about when you go swimming, when you stand up, your feet sink to the bottom. But what happens when you back float? You still weigh the same, but the weight is distributed on a bigger surface, making you float.
So, your flat, short boat should have held the most weight since it spread out over a bigger area. I found this video on the internet that explains it well.
Shout out to "Kids Want to Know" for being better at explaining buoyancy than I am.
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