Will It Sink or Float?

      This afternoon we moved on from our fabric unit and began learning about sinking and floating. We began the lesson by brainstorming what sink and float meant. Once we came to a common understanding of the vocabulary the class began to vote on whether certain objects I had picked out would sink or float. We were unable to decide of the staples or paper clips would sink or float.
      After we had made our predictions we began testing the objects in a tub of water. We found out that most of our predictions were correct with the exception of the hand sanitizer and the rubber band.

     Once we completed our testing of the objects we came up with some ideas of why they would either sink or float. These are still preliminary ideas and we will continue to test to see which ideas are true of buoyancy.
    My goal going forward is to let students test their own ideas of what they believe makes something sink or float.