Students from 8th-grade work to create a boat with the materials they choose and demonstrate what they learned in class.

1. To apply science and math skills (Archimedes’ Principle, density, displacement, surface area, volume, scale models) in the creation of your boat.

2. To build a boat that can carry as much weight as possible

3. To formulate supporting calculations to support your hypothesis of how much weight your boat can carry

4. Create a calculations predictions paper and personal written log to document learning and progress.

STANDARDS:

Apply Newton’s Third Law to design a solution to a problem involving the motion of two colliding objects.* [Clarification Statement: Examples of practical problems could include the impact of collisions between two cars, between a car and stationary objects, and between a meteor and a space vehicle.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to vertical or horizontal interactions in one dimension.]

Plan an investigation to provide evidence that the change in an object’s motion depends on the sum of the forces on the object and the mass of the object. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on balanced (Newton’s First Law) and unbalanced forces in a system, qualitative comparisons of forces, mass, and changes in motion (Newton’s Second Law), frame of reference, and specification of units.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to forces and changes in motion in one dimension in an inertial reference frame and to change in one variable at a time. Assessment does not include the use of trigonometry.]