Last week while talking about Christopher Columbus' journey across the sea the students were really interested in the ships. We made little ships and tried sailing them across the ocean. Each ship bottom was the same and each mast however each student put a different amount of play dough inside to weigh it down and each student designed a different size and shape sail for their ship. We then made scientific hypotheses about which ships would sink, flip and sail. Every student got to try to sail theirs across the ocean. The student quickly learned that too much weight made the ships sink. They found differences in the shapes of the sails as well. They really loved this activity.