Sink or Float Investigation: My Lab Report

Four numbered boxes turn this 3rd grade page into a small lab report. Box 1, My question, offers two investigations with a checkbox each: does an orange float with its peel, and does it float without its peel; and how many cubes can a clay boat carry before it sinks. Box 2, I think, has two writing lines for a prediction. Box 3, What happened, has two empty tanks to draw the results and two lines to describe them. Box 4, I learned, starts the sentence for the child with Now I know that.

Third grade science asks children to plan and carry out fair tests, and this is the shape every later lab report takes: question, prediction, observation, conclusion. Both questions have surprising answers. An orange floats in its peel and sinks without it, because the peel is full of air, and a clay boat holds more cubes than children expect before water comes over the side. Choosing the question gives the child ownership of the test.

You need an orange and a bowl of water, or clay and some unit cubes. Each question is really two tests, the orange with its peel and without it, or the clay boat floating and then sinking under its load, so there is one tank for each result; ask children to write a word under each tank so a reader knows which is which. The sentence starter in the last box keeps conclusions honest and short. This is the most open page of the sink or float family, the one to use once children have predicted, tested and drawn with the others.