SATROSPHERE SCIENCE CENTRE
Floating and Sinking Classroom Activities
These materials are designed to help you take the concept of floating and sinking
and properties of materials further in the classroom. This guide provides examples of
activities you can carry out with pupils and ideas for ways you can explore these
topics if you have used a visit to Satrosphere as a starting point to a classroom
project. We hope you find these materials useful.
What do the children already know?
Do they know of things that sink or float
in water? What have they seen or tried
out for themselves?
Make up a grid and get the children to
draw 4 things that sink and 4 that float.
Do they float or sink?
Do any of the children swim? What might
they use to help them whilst swimming?
Activity 1: Give it a Try
Use some toys and talk about what materials they are made of, try plastic ducks or
metal cars and guess if they will float or sink.
Predict what might happen with different objects then try them out.
Do metal objects always sink? For example get them to think about boats on the sea and
compare it to a penny. Does it depend on how the object is placed into the water?
Activity 2: Floating Boats
Try making boats from different materials e.g. sponge, metal, wood, plastic. Which
of these work best? Is shape important? Give each child 2 identical pieces of foil and
have them make one into a boat shape that floats and one into a shape that sinks.
Activity 3: Bubbles
Make some soap bubbles and watch them float in air. Make bubble pictures, what
do bubbles look like and what do you need to make them? Try blowing bubbles into
different liquids with a straw- oil, syrup and water work well- how do the bubbles
behave? Have the pupils make a chart to compare the different liquids.
Activity 4: Visits
Arrange visits from/to the coastguard/lifeboat crew and ask them to talk about what
they do.
Lifeboat Operations Manager
Aberdeen Lifeboat Station
Victoria dock entrance
York place
Aberdeen
AB11 5DF
01224 591658
Activity 5: Sea in a Bottle
You will need:
Coloured water (blue like the sea)
Baby oil
Small plastic bottles (500ml) with cap
Small beads/animals
Pour your coloured water into the bottle so it is half full. Add the baby oil into the
bottle but stop before it reaches the very top.
Drop in some small beads/boats/ducks if you have any so they float on top of the
water. Place the lid on tight, (possibly even glue it shut) Let the children play with
their bottle and watch what happens when you shake it and hold it different ways.
Activity 6: Different Liquids
Do objects act differently in different liquids?
You will need (per group):
Empty plastic bottle with top cut off- the taller the better
½ cup honey
½ cup of vegetable oil
Cup of water (you can dye the water with some food colouring for effect)
Assortment of small objects - pennies, dried beans, raisins, buttons, matchsticks, rice
or paper clips
In advance, put ½ cup honey into the bottom of each bottle.
Put the children into groups and have them take turns adding the oil and water to
their container with the honey. What do they observe? The water should float on
the honey and the oil on the water. The densest liquid will go to the bottom and the
least dense will float on the top. Once each group has assembled their ‘density
layers’, have them investigate which objects float or sink and in which liquids. For
example a penny will sink though all 3 liquids, but a raisin will sink though the oil and
water and float on honey.
As an extension, have the children make a list of other objects they would like to test
and make predictions about where they would sink to, they can then collect them
and test them out. They can also try making density layers out of other liquids. Very
salty water will sink below fresh water and it is possible to build density layers in a
test tube using samples of water with different salinities (salt concentrations). You
can make a rainbow if you colour each concentration of salty water with a different
food colouring. The layers would have to be added slowly with a pipette down the
side of the tube to stop them from mixing too much.
Activity 7: Water Creatures
Look at creatures that live in the water. What kind of water do they live in, salt
water or fresh water? What animals live in the sea? Make up your own aquarium
from a shoe box and decorate it with seaweed and creatures.
You could take the class pond dipping at a local park or with the ranger service
where they run educational visits.
Ian Talboys
Countryside Officer
Environmental Services
38 Powis Terrace
Kittybrewster
Aberdeen, AB25 3RF
Tel: 01224 897400
Fax: 01224 894069
Email: italboys@aberdeencity.gov.uk
Useful Websites
www.kids-science-experiments.com – science experiments with water.