Middle School Science Teacher Alex Randhava's students have been studying buoyant force, learning that the relationship between volume, mass, and density becomes very apparent when an object is dropped into a fluid. They've been dropping a variety of objects into fluids recently, and after learning the scientific principles and practicing the math, the exciting time came to see just how precise their understanding has become.  

Some students participated in a challenge to design a boat that sinks when precisely 500 grams of additional cargo is added. The boats were floated in water with the density of the Dead Sea, requiring additional calculations of buoyancy.

Other students worked behind the scenes to build a tool for measuring the density of an unknown fluid. 

The last challenge focused on the hurdle of measuring the differences in density across a vertical water column. The tool they currently have lacks the necessary precision, but students have one or two more tricks up their sleeves to try!