Thanksgiving Science

This week our afterschool science club is studying density. d = m/v... Density = mass per volume - or how much matter (stuff) is crammed in an amount of space. If a substance is less dense than water it has buoyancy... so it floats.

Since our study of density is happening so close to Thanksgiving, we decided to do some SINK or FLOAT experiments using some items from the typical Thanksgiving table.

We started with Sweet Potatoes! Yes, we tested both a fresh sweet potato and canned sweet potatoes! They both SUNK.

Then we tested cranberries! The fresh cranberries FLOATED, while both the canned varieties (both the whole berries AND the strange and creepy gelled variety) SUNK.

To discover why the fresh cranberries floated, the kids DISSECTED the cranberries. The reason was obvious. Upon cutting the fresh cranberries open we discovered they had hollow pockets of air inside which causes them to float.

We learned that to harvest cranberries, cranberry farmers flood the marshes or bogs with water and then drive a harvester through the flooded fields removing the ripe cranberries from the vines. The ripe cranberries float to the surface of the water for easy collection.

Next we tried to determine if turkeys would sink or float. We discovered that turkeys are very fast and extremely difficult to catch.