Sailing Ships

In honor of Columbus Day, we read in 1492 and did another experiment from Deanna Jump's Simple Science lessons. We observed a ball of clay sink to the bottom of a tub of water. Then I gave the students clay and asked them to try to make a ship that would float. Three students were able to make a ship that floated. To take it a step further, we put small bear counters in the ship to see how many they could hold and still float. One student's ship held 2 bears, one held 1 bear and the last one could not hold any bears without sinking.