Buoyancy Tutorial

McGraw Hill provides a wonderful tutorial for teaching concepts of buoyancy.  This tutorial provides opportunities for students to experiment with the buoyancy of a cargo craft.  The craft can be adjusted to varying widths in order to demonstrate the effects of surface area on the displacement of the fluid. 

 

The craft can be set afloat in water, alcohol or mercury so that students can understand the effects of visocity and fluid density on the buoyancy of the object.  Students can add cargo in varying incremental units and witness the displacement of the fluid.  A graduated overflow allows students to measure the volume of fluid displaced and data tables provide a comparision of volumes, mass and density of the fluid and objects.

There is also an option in the tutorial to add force vectors of the fluid, craft and cargo increments to assist students in incorporating free body diagrams to compare buoyant and gravitational forces.

Guided practice for the Buoyancy Tutorial (Word Document).