STEAM week_Spring 2023

How long can it float?

The challenge
For STEAM week in Spring 2023, the
challenge was for pupils to build a boat
that will hold the most weight before it
sinks. An additional boat was chosen to go
through to be judged under the category of
“most creative design.”

The Regatta
Each classroom held its own launch to find the boat that would hold
the most weight to go through to the grand final at the end of STEAM week.

What will your boat be made of?
A. Cardboard
B. Lego
C. Water bottles
D. Egg carton
E. Tin foil
F. Plastic tub
B.
A.
D.
C.
E.
F.

Click on screen to see the boat display

Early Years Foundation Stage
In the classrooms, over the course of the week,
the teaching and learning covered a wide variety
of water-based topics, including in Reception
where children undertook floating and sinking
experiments in Science with paper boats and
drew a sailboat scene in Art.

Year 1
In Science, the children investigated how to clean
up an ocean oil spill and learnt that lots of
different animals are affected by such pollution
and it can be very damaging to the environment.
In DT, they designed and made tin foil boats,
then put coins in them to see how much they could
take before it sank. Whilst in Maths, pupils
completed floating fact families.

Year 2
In Year 2, pupils also built tin foil
boats to test how much weight they
could hold and painted watercolour
scenes in their Art lesson.

Year 3

Year 4
Pupils in Year 4 built tin foil boats in Science and
researched The Titanic as part of their History lesson
(including a timeline and a cross section of the ship).

Year 5
Children explored further the concept of
buoyancy and experimented with various
boat designs using marbles as cargo.

Year 6
Pupils researched where the major shipping routes of the world
were located. They spotted that the majority of these waterways
were very narrow and were fascinated to learn
about the 400m long ‘Ever Given’ cargo ship which caused
chaos in 2021 when it completely blocked the Suez Canal.

Boats that held the most weight
These four boats were still floating after all of the
available weigh (11.8kg) was loaded on board
Ahmad
(Year 2)
Liam (Year 4)

Muhammad (Year 4)
Leo (Year 6)

Creative design winners
Lilly (Year 3) Odin (Year 2)

Tammy (Year 5)
James (Year 6)

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