Craft a Raft (Follow up to Float Boat)

CRAFT A RAFT (Follow up to Float Boat)

This activity as a continuation to the activity described in Float Boat, gets children to experiment on how heavy things can float.

Materials

• Fifty ice-cream sticks
• A tub half filled with water
• Five pebbles
• A small length of cellophane tape
• A mopping cloth

Procedure

1. Divide the class into five teams.
2. Give each team a ball of clay and 10 ice cream sticks.
3. Ask them to make the ball of clay float, without changing its shape
4. Once they do that, give each team a pebble and a small length of cellophane tape and ask them to use the ice-cream stick and make the pebble float.

Teacher’s note

The ball of clay will float if the ice-cream sticks are arranged like the rays of the sun around the bottom of the ball of clay. The ice-cream sticks need to be inserted into the clay ball.

Two of the sticks can be taped together to make an X. The pebble can be placed on the middle of the X and the ‘ice-cream stick raft’ put into the tub of water

The sticks help spread the weight of the clay and the pebble over a larger area.