Experimenting With Other Liquids

How would the floating and sinking behavior of the objects you ranked by density change if you could change the density of the liquid in the pail?

Choose one of the objects that sank in water and place it in the liquid. Now increase the density of the liquid by moving the slider to the right.

At what liquid density did the object change from sinking to floating?



Choose one of your objects that floated in water and place it in the liquid. Move the liquid density slider to the left to decrease the density.

At what liquid density did the object change from floating to sinking?

Try this with at least five objects and complete a table like the one below.



Now that you have collected this data, go back the original question and see if you can answer it.

Challenge Question:

How do objects like aircraft carriers, which are made of materials with densities greater than water, float?

This makes a great segue into Archimedes Principle, which can be explored at the following website: 

http://home.a-city.de/walter.fendt/physengl/buoyforce.htm


Procedure 1  |   2  |   3  |   4  |   5   |