Floating
Vegetables
Grade: 3-5
Name:______________
Date: ______________
Time:______________
By Christopher Dallas,
Adam Sanders
Floating Vegetables
After reading about Holly Evans, you have an idea
to float some vegetables of your own. In order
to do this you will have to design a craft that
will safely float your vegetables across the
room.
Challenge:
Build and design a craft that will safely
transport your vegetable across the classroomto
the drop off zone.
Estimated Time Period: 1
Hour
Floating Vegetables
Criteria: Your teacher may provide you with some
materials to help build your structure. Since the
structure is designed by you, you may want to bring
your own materials to keep your structure unique.
Example of creative materials:
colorful yarn or string
popsicle sticks
pipe cleaners
clay
plastic container
paper towel roll
milk carton
cereal box
To Do:
As you are designing your structure, worksheets will
be passed out to help keep your activity organized.
Brainstorming is a great way to start off in planning your
design. Writing down ideas and turning them into
sketches helps plan for a successful approach. A student
log is a good way to explain your ideas and it also gives
you positive or negative feedback.
Floating Vegetables
Background:
• Information on how helium balloons float and real
helium balloons are included in the worksheet
section.
• This activity will work well with classes that are
already growing vegetables or plants in their science
classes.
Discussion Questions:
• How do helium balloons float?
• Where is space?
• How many balloons will it take to float
your vegetable?
•
•
•
•
Who was the first American in space?
What makes up an atom?
Why do people use helium balloons?
Where was the first helium balloons come invented?
Floating Vegetable
That’
Challenge Extension:
After building your structure you decide that you want to
test it further. Your teacher has setup a course for you in
the gym or hallway. You will have to float your vegetables
further and you structure will be timed. You will also have
to carry extra cargo. Good luck !
Criteria:
•
•
Course will be timed in
1hour time frame.
Extra cargo will be
floated
a
In the spaces below please draw and design two floating vegetable structures.
Worksheet for Brainstorming
Floating Vegetable
Name____________
Balloon Resources
1 Foot diameter balloon
Volume = 0.5 cubic feet
3 Foot diameter balloon
Volume = 14.1 cubic feet
Lifting capacity = .9 pounds
6 Foot diameter balloon
Volume = 113 cubic feet
Lifting capacity = 7.1 pounds
12 Foot diameter balloon
Volume = 904 cubic feet
Lifting capacity = 57
3-1 foot
Name:____________
Student Log
As you design and work on your structure remember to write down your
ideas in your workbook.
______________________
______________________
______________________
______________________
______________________
______________________
______________________
______________________
Floating in General
Teacher Edition
Most of us feel comfortable with the idea of
something floating in water. We see that happen every
day. In fact, people themselves float in water, so we have
a way of directly experiencing water flotation. The reason
why things float in water applies to air as well, so let's
start by understanding water flotation.
Let's say that you take a plastic 1-liter soda bottle,
empty out the soft drink it contains, put the cap back on it
(so you have a sealed bottle full of air), tie a string
around it like you would a balloon, and dive down to the
bottom of the deep end of a swimming pool with it. Since
the bottle is full of air, you can imagine it will have a
strong desire to rise to the surface. You can sit on the
bottom of the pool with it, holding the string, and it will
act just like a helium balloon does in air. If you let go of
the string the bottle will quickly rise to the surface of the
water.
The reason that this soda bottle "balloon" wants to
rise in the water is because water is a fluid and the 1-liter
bottle is displacing one liter of that fluid. The bottle and
the air in it weigh perhaps an ounce at most (1 liter of air
weighs about a gram, and the bottle is very light as well).
The liter of water it displaces, however, weights about
1,000 grams (2.2 pounds or so). Because the weight of
the bottle and its air is less than the weight of the water it
displaces, the bottle floats. This is the law of buoyancy.
Helium Flotation
Teacher Edition
Helium balloons work by the same law of
buoyancy. In this case, the helium balloon that you hold
by a string is floating in a "pool" of air (when you stand
underwater at the bottom of a swimming pool, you are
standing in a "pool of water" maybe 10 feet deep -- when
you stand in an open field you are standing at the bottom
of a "pool of air" that is many miles deep). The helium
balloon displaces an amount of air (just like the empty
bottle displaces an amount of water). As long as the
helium plus the balloon is lighter than the air it displaces,
the balloon will float in the air.
It turns out that helium is a lot lighter than air. The
difference is not as great as it is between water and air
(a liter of water weighs about 1,000 grams, while a liter
of air weighs about 1 gram), but it is significant. Helium
weighs 0.1785 grams per liter. Nitrogen weighs 1.2506
grams per liter, and since nitrogen makes up about 80
percent of the air we breathe, 1.25 grams is a good
approximation for the weight of a liter of air.
Therefore, if you were to fill a 1-liter soda bottle full
of helium, the bottle would weigh about 1 gram less than
the same bottle filled with air. That doesn't sound like
much -- the bottle itself weighs more than a gram, so it
won't float. However, in large volumes, the 1-gram-perliter difference between air and helium can really add up.
This explains why blimps and balloons are generally
quite large -- they have to displace a lot of air to float.
The following diagram shows the different lifting
capacities of different volumes of helium:
History of Hot Air Balloons
Teacher Edition
September 19, 1783 ~ A sheep, a duck, and a rooster become
the first passengers in a hot air balloon launched by the Montgolfier
brothers, Joseph and Ettienne.
November 21,1783 ~ The first recorded manned flight in a hot
air balloon took place in Paris. Built from paper and silk by the
Montgolfier brothers, this balloon was piloted on a 22 minute flight by
two noblemen from the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
From the center of Paris they ascended 500 feet above the roof tops
before eventually landing miles away in the vineyards. Local farmers
were very suspicious of this fiery dragon descending from the sky.
The pilots offered champagne to placate them and to celebrate the
first human flight, a tradition carried on to this day.
January 19, 1784 ~ In Lyon, France, the only recorded flight
by Joseph Montgolfier was made in one of the largest balloons ever
made.
September 15, 1784 ~ An Italian, Vincenzo Lunardi, made the
first balloon flight outside of France. The 500 cubic metre balloon
flew from Moorfields in England and landed near Ware.
November 30, 1784 ~ Launching their balloon from Rhedarium
Garden, London, another Frenchman, Jean-Pierre Blanchard, and an
American, John Jeffries, make their first flight.
January 7, 1785 ~ the same team of Jean-Pierre Blanchard and
John Jeffries became the first to fly across the English Channel.
January 9, 1793 ~ the first flight of a balloon in North
America occured in Philadelphia and was piloted by Jean-Pierre
Blanchard.
October 10, 1960 ~ the official birth date of the modern hotair balloon. The first man-carrying free flight took place at Bruning,
Nebraska, in the Raven prototype ‘modern’ hot-air balloon. The 30,000
cu ft envelope was constructed of a polyurethane coated nylon and the
burner was propane powered.
Your School!
Space Explorer
Volume 1, Issue 1
June 29, 1999
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Carrots land on the
Moon!
2
Potatoes Take Over
Mars!
2
Space Shuttle Made
of Cumquats
2
Super Strong Salad
Takes Over New
York.
3
Vegetable Soup
Fuel?
4
Totally Tubular
Tomatoes
5
Chopped up!
6
Special points of
interest:
• Tomatoes are fruit!
Vegetables in Space?!?
It all started in HoHo-Kus, New jersey
on May 11, 1999.
Holly Evans
launched her
science experiment,
flats of vegetable
seedlings carried up
into the ionosphere
by weather balloons
to see “the effects
of extra-terrestrial
conditions on
vegetable growth
and development.”
All over the
country, enormous
vegetables are seen
floating to earth.
“Cucumbers in
Kalamazoo. Lima
beans loom over
Levittown.
Artichokes advance
on Anchorage.
Vegetable Cola
FREE
Holly begins to
wonder about this
vegetable
phenomenon. June
29th is an
unforgettable day in
• President Pumpkin Pie
turns 56 tomorrow!
Astronaut Eats Vegetable in
Space!
• Miss. Nelson’s garden is
missing!
On June 29, 1999,
Samuel Amazon was
sent into space with a
magic carrot. The carrot was grown in a
magic green house and
was said to supply a
weeks worth of nutri-
• Rachel Ranch ravishes
radishes!
• Veggies go on Strike!
• Secret Vegetable Recipe...
his entertaining
story full of
imagination that will
soar with each
delightful page turn.
tion. The only way
that this carrot would
provide this nutrition is
in space! Today Samuel has lasted exactly 1
week on just one carrot. Thanks for that
special Greenhouse.
Your School!
Squash town Market
Expiration Date:
07/01/05
Floating Vegetables
Relation to Curriculum:
Floating Vegetables is related to many general education subjects.
•
•
•
•
•
Math- This activity involves different types of measurements. The students
will design and measure and sketch their structure in their brainstorming
worksheet. If the students are growing vegetables, taking daily records is
another way that the activity is integrated with mathematics.
Language Arts– This activity is based on the reading of David Wiesner’s
June 29, 1999. The students read this book and are asked to design their
own floating vegetable structure.
Science- Incorporating a vegetable plant growing lab would help students
the processes of growing healthy vegetable for their own gardens at home.
Art– The students create a fun and unique structure.
Technology– Hands on problem solving.
Resources:
Teacher:
Popular Science Magazine
Air and Space Magazine
www.howstuffworks.com
www.balloonzone.com/history.html
Students:
Farm Journal
Hoards DairyMan
www.agriculture.com
www.nasa.com
Teacher Edition
Floating Vegetables
Evaluation:
Did you/your group understand the challenge?
No
With help
Yes
How well did you/your groups solution meet the
challenge
Not very well Fairly well
Very well
Were you/your group able to complete
your solution within the given amount of
time?
All of it
Some of it
Most of it
How do you feel when you look at your final
product?
happy
Disappointed
Happy
Did you/your group do your best work?
No
Could do better Yes
How well did you/your group present
your solution?
Not very well Fairly well
Very
Very well
3.2.4D
Standards
D. Recognize and use the technological design process to solve problems.
•
Recognize and explain basic problems
•
Identify possible solutions and their course of action
•
Try a solution
•
Describe the solution, identify its impact and modify if necessary.
•
Show the steps taken and the results
1.6.3 C,D,E
C. Speak using skills appropriate to formal speech situations.
•
Use appropriate volume.
•
Pronounce most words accurately .
•
Pace speech so that it is understandable
•
Demonstrate an awareness of the audience.
D. Contribute to discussion.
•
Ask relevant questions.
•
Respond with appropriate information or opinions to questions asked.
•
Listen to and acknowledge the contributions of others.
•
Display appropriate turn-taking behaviors
E. Participate in small and large group discussions and presentations
•
Participate in everyday conversations
•
Present oral reading.
•
Deliver short reports
•
Conduct short interviews
Standards
1.2.3 A
A. Read and understand essential content of informational texts and documents in all
academic areas.
•
Differential fact from opinion within text.
•
Distinguish between essential and nonessential information within a text
•
Make inferences from text when studying a topic and draw conclusions based on
the text.
•
Analyze text organization and content to derive meaning from text using established criteria.