Attack of the Raging River
Copyright 2007 Chico75, Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amazon_river.JPG
Through this lesson and its associated activities, students discover the relationship between an object's mass and the amount of space it takes up (its volume) as they create small boats that are able to float loads—which helps them get out of the jungle as part of the ongoing (hypothetical) storyline of the Lost in the Amazon unit. Students also learn about the concepts of displacement and density.
This lesson and its activities provides an opportunity for student teams to complete the engineering design process used by practicing engineers including designing, constructing and testing their boat creations. See the related unit's Engineering Connection for further explanation.
After this lesson, students should be able to:
- Discover the relationship between an object's mass and the amount of space it takes up (its volume).
- Create small boats that are able to float different loads.
- Understand the concepts of displacement and density.