Activity: Lemon Boats for Bugs

At camp this week, the gang made a bunch of different vegetable boats built for bugs. Let’s make lemon boats and see if they float!

Materials:

• Lemons (limes or a melon or anything else with a thick skin works well too)
• Small sticks
• Paper
• Tape
• Water (for testing)

Wow-To:

Step 1: Cut your lemon in half and hollow each side.

Step 2: Insert your stick into one empty hollow of a lemon half.

Step 3: Make a paper sail and attach it to the stick.

Step 4: Once your bug boat is in ship shape, fill a sink or tub with water or bring your boat to a pond to test it! Does it float?

What in the WOW is going on?

Objects float when they are less dense than the fluid they are in. If you dropped a tennis ball and a marble into a bucket of water the marble would sink and the tennis ball would float. This is because a tennis ball is full of air ( it is not very dense ) and a marble is solid ( it is very dense ). Huge ships float because although they are extremely heavy they have a lot of empty space inside. Lemons float because they have lots of air pockets in the thick skin