The students are going to tell you about what we are doing in science for. In science we are building boats. The students are building the boats out of foam cups, aluminum foil, rubber bands, tape, glue, and straws. The students could only use four cups, one foam sheet, and twenty straws. It didn’t matter how many materials were used for the rest of the building process. After they were done building the boat, the students could test the boats to see if they could make improvements. When they made improvements they couldn’t test their boat again.

The day after the boat testing, the students had a field trip to IWU. When the field trip was over it was the end of the day. The next day the students tested there boats to see which one could hold the most pennies without tipping over the boat. Some of the boats tied with the same amount. Some of the boats were close to the same amount they were either one higher or one lower. Some of the boat’s pennies varied by hundreds. Some of the boats didn’t hold very many.

Some of the boats held thirty pennies, but some held one-hundred pennies. It all depends on how their boat was structured. If it was built flat it might not hold very many pennies. If the boat was built higher and sturdy it might hold more than thirty pennies. If it wasn’t built with walls on the edges the boat could get water in it and weigh it down so it could sink to the bottom. Some of the boats didn’t even float because water got in the sides and sunk it. One of the boats held up to 400 pennies. Some boats did not hold any at all. Once one side started to sink they had to start to slow down and count how many pennies that were just put in the boat, because the pennies that makes it sink doesn’t count towards all the pennies that were put in all together.

After the boat sank, the students would take out all of the pennies, and count them. The goal was to have the most pennies out of the class.