Center Focus

Aluminum Boat Contest

  1. You will need to have a roll of aluminum foil that your students can cut into 20cm x 20cm sheets. You will also need metric weights or marbles if working with younger students.
  2. The object of this center is for your students to build a boat out of the aluminum foil which will hold the greatest mass before sinking.
  3. Each student will get three chances to make a boat and they will record the results for each one. They also need to make a conclusion based on their experiments as to what they did to the foil to make it hold more mass.
  4. Also have a chart made at the center where students can record their best boat model (the one that held the most weight) in order to compare theirs with the rest of the class.
  5. After everyone has gone to the center, find whose boat could hold the most mass and have the class discuss the reasons why that design was the most successful.