Don't be a drag. Learners work in groups to design boats that move slowly. The provided reason for the activity is that a fish caught on a fishing reel is pulling the boat, causing it to move too fast. The STEM activity teaches the class...

Students design and build full-size boats made out of two-liter plastic bottles, chicken wire, and plywood. Then they race the boats, with the boat's designers "manning the hull", in the school's swimming pool.

Work together to stay afloat. Using a paper boat, pupils connect properties of materials to their usefulness. They test different paper to determine how many pennies each boat will hold and learn that combining materials with different...

Sailboat design requires more than a half-circle and triangle sketch. After viewing a slideshow presentation that outlines the requirements for sailboat design, learners draw a design, perform the needed...

Fifth graders apply the concepts they know regarding mass, volume and density in the previous activities to design a boat. Student teams must make a boat which can travel the waters of the Amazon Rainforest. Each group makes a...

What did the sea say to the boat? Nothing, it just waved. An inquiry-based lesson starts with a simple concept on the Archimedes Principle and challenges pupils to make something out of clay that floats. Then, they design...

This open-ended boat building exercise is meant to be part of a three-lesson series on ships. Links to the other two lessons are included. This particular part is mostly a group lab activity in which they build a boat, find its load line...

Working in small groups learners develop three alternative boat designs. They discuss the rationale for the type of hull, propeller, location of ballast, and type of building material used in their design. They build their boat.

Fourth graders explore the concept of mass and buoyancy. After building boats out of several materials, they predict whether each boat floats if certain objects are added. Students test their predictions and draw conclusions from their...

Students design and construct a boat out of aluminum foil and a few other simple materials. The boats then be tested by floating them in water, then adding mass until they sink. They explore the various shapes of boat construction.

How many pennies can an aluminum foil boat hold? That is the challenge in a collaborative activity designed to explore the concept of buoyancy. Learners use aluminum foil to build makeshift boats and test the weight they hold before...

Clay's as good a material as any to build a boat, right? An introductory lesson sets the stage for two activities associated with buoyancy. The first involves building boats out of clay, while the second uses these boats to measure the...

Written to introduce pupils to buoyancy, this activity has collaborative groups work to design a floatable clay boat. They first observe that a stick of clay sinks in water and then are given their own stick to reshape into a floating...

Students construct aluminum foil boats that float while holding the greatest number of pennies. They investigate the concept of water displacement, record their results, and watch a Bill Nye video on buoyancy.

“It was a miracle.” Basil Heatter’s “The Long Night of the Little Boats,” which details the miraculous rescue of the British army from the shores of Dunkirk in 1940, is featured in a series of exercises that ask class members to read,...

Learners design, build, and test the specifications (water displacement and load line) for a model boat. The lesson focuses especially on integrating design principles with inquiry-based experimental skills.

Young scholars engage in this, the third in a three-part series on ships. The overall lesson series is designed to allow students to extend their understanding of floating, sinking, density, and buoyancy and apply it to the design and...

Students extend their understanding of floating, sinking, density, and buoyancy and apply it to the design and testing of ships. students discover that most ships are constructed very similarly-whether they are schooners or destroyers.

Students research different types of boats in various time periods and cultures. Then they locate photographs and information about construction details of one type of boat. Students also use their research as the basis for designing and...

Learners design and execute a lab through which they study the distinctions between density, buoyancy, and volume.

Fifth graders investigate buoyancy by conducting a science experiment.  In this water properties lesson, 5th graders predict which of their different paper boat designs will float for the longest period.  Students conduct the...

  Students build boats out of clay to test the buoyancy of the boat in water.  Students break into pairs and construct their boat to specific guide lines, then experiment with their boat in the water.   

Students build a boat out of cardboard and tape. They apply Archimedes' Principle to their design.

Design a canal boat fleet by having learners research canal boats and their original coloring. They will then work individually to create a 21st century design for a fleet of canal boats. Note: This is a UK lesson with great ideas that...