Senior infants were given the STEM challenge to make a Play-doh boat that could float.

Firstly, we wondered if a ball of Play-doh would float. Therefore, we decided to test that out first. For this experiment, we needed a container of water and some Play-doh. We worked together in small groups and some of us predicted that a ball of Play-doh would sink while others predicted that it would float. We found that a ball of Play-doh that was gently placed into a container of water, sank straight away.
We thought that the ball of Play-doh sank because it was too heavy but we predicted that the Play-doh would float when it was shaped like at boat. Again we worked together in small groups and we found that it was best to spend a lot of time shaping our boats and making sure that there were no holes in them, otherwise they would sink! We also found that the Play-doh didn't work as well if it was left in the water for too long.
Some of our boats were successful and they could even hold some marbles! We enjoyed adding in marbles one by one, while practicing our counting skills, until the boats sank. One boat could even hold 13 marbles before it sank which we were all very excited about!