High school students float their ‘boats’ for science

• Snowflake wins

From left to right are Rachael Meyer, Julia Langlois and Olivia Kessler, whose boat floats well enough to hold all three of them. Vera Roy-Stoeberl photo

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• PHOTO GALLERY: Boat races for science

High school science teacher Kristi Graetz has a unique method of teaching the principles of buoyancy to ninth grade general science honor students.

Graetz says, “These…students have learned that it is the volume of an object that determines the buoyant force that acts upon it when placed in water.

“So they had to…build a boat out of cardboard, plastic and any adhesives that they wanted to use that displaced enough water so it would keep them afloat. The students had to mathematically figure out how much water the boat would have to displace to hold them up when they got inside of them to race them across the (high school) pool.”

Students were set up in teams, used mathematics, science principles, creativity and their imaginations to come up with some uniquely shaped and colorful “boats” and gathered Monday morning to test and race their water crafts.

“They each designed (the cardboard boats) differently and every boat eventually made the trip across the pool and back,” said Graetz.

Graetz was happy with the students’ work.

“They only had three days, working in groups of four, to try and build their boats and they did an excellent job,” she said.

Results

• First place: Olivia Kessler, Rachael Meyer, Julia Langlois and T.J. Lee

• Second place: Hannah Furlong, Ela Engen, Emily Gabriel, and Jordan O’Malley

• Third place: Curtis Hanson, Nate Wronski, Collin Nielsen and Tom Ramquist

• Fourth place: Kyle Duex, Tom Fusilier, Sahand Eftekari, and Aleda McMonagle

• Fifth place: Shawyun Tabesh, Dan Weber, Mark Steffl, and Tom Smisek

• Sixth place: Shannon Moe, Taylor Magill, and Kristin Benusa

• Seventh place: Lindsey Squire, Alyssa Dunn, Nicole VegaContreras and Ayana Nguyen

The students voted on awards. These are the results.

• Best Design: Snowflake boat constructed by Kessler, Meyer, Langlois and Lee

• Best Costume/Team Spirit: Red, White and Blue boat constructed by Furlong, Engen, Gabriel and O’Malley

• Titanic Award: Black Swan boat constructed by Squire, Dunn, VegaContreras and Nguyen

• Ugly Duckling Award: A tie between boats constructed by Moe, Magill and Benusa and Tabesh, Weber, Steffl and Smisek.

Tags: education, k-12, wisconsin