This week in Science, Year 6 was set the challenge of designing a boat made from aluminium foil that can sustain weights on water. We began the lesson by recapping what the children have learned so far in the topic; we discussed buoyancy, upthrust and density. After this, we tasked the pupils with building a boat without any instructions, and then asked the pupils to record how much weight the boat could hold whilst still floating. After the first experiment, we discussed how we could improve the boats to hold more weight. We talked about increasing the surface area of the boat, evenly distributing the weights and raising the heights of the boats to ensure there were no breaches of water.
In Environmental Studies, the pupils also created boats out of sticks and thread to check their buoyancy.
