Oct 17 2009
A very STRANGE thing happened …
This week in maths we were looking at capacity. After doing an experiment on Tuesday looking at how the water level in a container rises when you put heavy objects in it we looked at what happened to a FULL container of water when you put heavy objects in it. We had been talking about Mr Achimede’s Bath and thought we’d try it out for ourselves.
Mr Archimede's Bath
However, a very strange thing happened … check out the video to see what happened.
We still haven’t figured out why the water rose ABOVE the top of the container … maybe YOU can help us.
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I’m no scientist, but water has a certain surface tension, that’ll be why I would think.
WOW, what an exciting experiment. It looks like a forcefield holding the water in, I wonder what it is?
It is surface tension, it’s like the ’skin’ on warm custard!-you sometimes see it in nature films when you see insects skating on the top of a pond. It is what makes water ‘hard’ and why there is a waterfall thingy spraying the water underneath the high diving boards in competitions like the olympics so the divers don’t get hurt. A cool experiment to see surface tension in action is to get a small coin e.g. 10c and an eye dropper. Count how many drops you can get on the coin before the water spills…make sure you guess before you start and see who is closest…very fun.
Mrs McRobert (room3 Nayland Primary)
And then there’s this experiment to try
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5AxlJSiEEs
Mum says water has a skin and thats why insects can walk on it