⛵ Foil boats and blocks: the whole packet

⛵ Foil boats and blocks · kindergarten · 1 day of testing · free · 30 minutes a sitting

My days, if the fair is 14 days away

Count back from your fair day and write in each date. Fewer days than this? The jobs share days, in this order; nothing is skipped.

Dates from my teacher

• My question is due
• Testing starts
• My results table and graph are due
• My board is due

In this packet

1. 🗓️ My project plan
2. 💭 My hypothesis
3. 🧺 Change, measure, keep the same
4. 🪜 My steps
5. 📊 My results
6. 📓 My logbook
7. ✅ My conclusion
8. ✂️ Board titles to cut out
9. 🏅 The judge's questions and my certificate

If I change how big the foil boat is, then how many blocks it carries before it sinks will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

3 levels × 3 tries at each = 9 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• 🥈 Foil: a small, a middle and a big square
• 🁫 Dominoes, or small wooden blocks all the same size: about 20 small wooden blocks
• 🛁 A tub of water
• 🖍️ Crayons or markers

Be safe: 💧 Water · 🧽 A bit messy

1. Grown-up: Your grown-up fills a big tub with water, a hand deep.
2. Fold up the edges of each foil square to make three boats.
3. Grown-up: With your grown-up, float the small boat on the water.
4. Grown-up: With your grown-up at the tub, put in blocks one at a time, counting, until it sinks.
5. Grown-up: Your grown-up dries the boat, and you test it two more times.
6. Grown-up: With your grown-up, do three tests with the middle boat and three with the big boat.
7. Colour a box for every block. Which boat carried the most?

Write each number in your results table the moment you measure it.

I changed: Boat   I measured: how many blocks it carries before it sinks (blocks)

MY GRAPH (a bar graph: boat along the bottom, blocks up the side)

What I noticed: ______________________________________________

Write something every day you work on it, even the days you only gather things. More days? The three-page logbook prints from peabody.kids/science-fair/templates/logbook.

My hypothesis was ☐ right ☐ partly right ☐ not right.

I know because my numbers show:

What surprised me, or what might have gone wrong (7th and up):

Next time I would test:

Idea: Change a second thing: make each boat with low sides and with high sides, and count the blocks for all six.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: sink or float: does a bigger foil boat carry more blocks?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing how big the foil boat is would change how many blocks it carries before it sinks, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed how big the foil boat is (Small boat, Middle boat, Big boat) and measured how many blocks it carries before it sinks in blocks.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept the same kind of foil and the same blocks the same, so only how big the foil boat is was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 3 times at each of my 3 levels, and I found the middle number.
6. What did you find out? Show me in your numbers. Say something like: Look at my table: Small boat and Big boat gave different numbers, and here's the pattern.
7. Was your hypothesis right? How do you know? Say something like: My numbers show whether I was right, partly right or not, and I can show you where.
8. Did anything go wrong, or surprise you? Say something like: One try was odd, so I did it again and wrote it in my logbook.
9. If you did it again, what would you change or test next? Say something like: I'd change a second thing: make each boat with low sides and with high sides, and count the blocks for all six.