Sink or Float Activity

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Sink or Float Activity

• Dr. Ken Miller
• Montana State University Billings

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Will these items float or sink?

• Flat piece of aluminum foil
• Crumpled piece of aluminum foil
• Golf ball with holes
• Jar lid with holes
• Steel cylinder and wooden cube
• Rock

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Percentage of Students who Understand concepts
related to float/sink
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Sinking and Floating Concepts

• Children use language that is meaningful to them
  in primary and Intermediate grades.
• As students become ingrained in textbook language
  and jargon, they use terminology that has
  relatively no meaning to them. Science Noises

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Sinking and Floating Concepts

• The research suggests that we try to make a
  conceptual change in students rather than cover
  the material.
• Isnt this an important characteristic of good
  teaching? Less taught better might be more
  appropriate than teaching low level objectives.

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Sinking and Floating Concepts

• The children in this research have not made a
  conceptual change, even though they have been
  taught the words.
• The studentsconceptual understanding of floating
  and sinking has not changed throughout the 16
  years of experiences indigenous of typical
  schooling.

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What do you think this means?

• In viewing the data presented in this class
  regarding sinking and floating concepts, I
  think...