Apologia General Science Experiment 3.2 Which "Boat" Will Move?

Apologia General Science 

Experiment 3.2

Which "Boat" Will Move?

We drew out four "boats" from a sturdy piece of cardboard.  We bought the nifty kit with supplies, but the cardboard we had to provide.  They provided scissors, tissue paper, one piece of gum, and a hotel size piece of soap.

Dd was ever-so-happy to chew up the gum for the experiment.  We had to place the gum, soap, and tissue paper in the cut out triangle at the stern (back) of our boat.  There was one boat without anything attached to it--this was our "control" boat.

Here Dd is placing the items on each boat.  The goal was to have the same size for each item placed, so no boat had a bigger "motor" than the others.

Meanwhile the water was filling in our bathtub---three inches in depth was the target.

Then we placed all four boats in the water.  The "control" boat (with nothing attached to the back of the boat) started to curl a little in the water; with the sides turning up.  The gum boat began to immediately start sinking.  None of our boats actually moved--see below.

SO! this experiment told us that the boat with the piece of soap on it was sure to move forward and our boat did NOT!  We are always the ones that don't have the same result that is told will happen.  

Dd got some dish soap (liquid) and squirted behind the boats to see them move.  Two of the boats sank before she could squirt them (the gum and tissue boats).


If we were to do follow-up experiment; we thought it would be interesting to have the boats like before, only this time have four different brands of soap.  Then we could see how Dove vs. Ivory vs. Dial vs. hotel brand.  Our experiment "failed" to do what they said it would, but we enjoyed doing it.

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