Science: Displacement/Water Tightness

Science: In the past number of weeks the children in the senior room have been learning about water displacement. The placing of an object into water will cause its level to rise. Whether the object floats or sinks depends on the relationship between the weight of the object and the weight of the amount of water displaced. Check out our descriptions in the pictures below.

To help us understand an important aspect of boat building the children were given a brief to design a boat capable of holding a cargo load and have separate compartments that had to be water tight. The experiment was to test the boats ability to take on water in one compartment. If properly sealed and water tight it would prevent the water going into the next compartment thus allowing sufficient time for people to safely exit the boat. Unfortunately this did not work for the ill fated Titanic but rest assured there are future designers and engineers coming from Dromindoora NS with many new and exciting ideas.

Our tests involved boring a hole in the hull of the boats in one compartment to see if the seal was good enough to take on water and hold it in that section only. An unreliable seal allowed water to spread through each compartment and eventually sinking the boat. The results of our experiments can be seen in our pictures.