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animal science experiment

Shark Buoyancy – Animal Science Experiment

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Do your kids ever ask questions about animals and your not sure how to answer or explain them? Mine do too, and then we have to find a way to replicate it to learn more. Similar to when we were learning about how arctic animals stay warm. This shark buoyancy is another great animal science experiment for animal lovers.

Shark Buoyancy - Animal Science Experiment

Shark Buoyancy – Animal Science Experiment

This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.

We love hands on learning here, science experiments are a favorite way to learn and spend our time together in our family and homeschool. This science is easy to do, and perfect for shark week in July.

Floating Shark Science Experiment

What you need:

  • a large bowl filled with water
  • balloons
  • dish detergent
  • water
  • vegetable oil
  • marker (optional)

What you do:

  1. Add about 1/4 cup of dish detergent, oil, and water to each of your balloons. Try to get any air out of your balloon before tying the knot or it will affect your experiment.
  2. Fill a large bowl with water.
  3. Draw a face on your balloons – optional.
  4. Place your balloons into the bowl of water and watch what happens.

What you see happening:

What happens when you place the balloons in the water? Does one float? Does one sink? Is there one that is just kinda floating there in the middle?

There is one balloon that is going to float and this is the answer to how sharks can float and why this shark buoyancy animal science experiment can be a success. Tip: make sure to get all the air out of the balloons or it will throw this experiment off.

Shark Buoyancy - Animal Science Experiment
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Shark Buoyancy - Animal Science Experiment

Shark Buoyancy - Science experiment

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Active Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 10 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Estimated Cost: $1

Let's learn more about how shark float.

Materials

  • balloons
  • vegetable oils
  • dish detergent
  • water

Tools

  • A large bowl of water.

Instructions

  1. Add about 1/4 cup of dish detergent, oil, and water to each of your balloons. Try to get any air out of your balloon before tying the knot or it will affect your experiment.
  2. Fill a large bowl with water.
  3. Draw a face on your balloons - optional.
  4. Place your balloons into the bowl of water and watch what happens.

Notes

Check out Arctic animal science experiments for more animal science fun.

© Ashley Mullen
Project Type: Science Experiment / Category: Experiments

What Helps Sharks Float

Sharks rely on their liver which has oil and fats. Their liver has two parts filled with oil and fats, substances that are lighter than water helping them to float. Liver is as much as 30% of the shark weight, and although it helps for buoyancy, sharks must swim continuously to avoid sinking.

More Learning about Sharks:

Animal Science Activity

We’ll be doing more animal related science projects around here as I have three kids who love hands on learning and science experiments. My oldest, she is an animal lover and wants to learn everything she can. Make sure you check out our arctic animal experiment, and learn how animals stay warm in freezing cold temperatures of the arctic and similar place.

Science Experiment E-Book

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You may also be interested in:

Arctic Animal Science Experiment
Arctic Animal Science Experiment

Filed Under: Experiments, Kids Activities Tagged With: animal science experiment, science experiment

Arctic Animals – Science Experiment

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

I have animal lovers here who have been loving our science curriculum work right now, its about animals around the world. This week we learned more about arctic animals in the Arctic and Antarctic.

Arctic Animal Science Experiment

Arctic Animals – Science Experiment

*This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.*

What child isn’t wondering how arctic animals stay warm considering we make our kids wear layers of clothing in the winter and the animals just have fur.

We learned how they live in the cold, how they survive the freezing cold temperatures. Considering my oldest likes to sit down and watch animal documentaries, she loves what we are learning right now. This are some amazing live cameras you can check out to take virtual field trip to the Arctic.

Right now in our BookShark Science curriculum we are learning animals from the Usborne World of Animals book.

Arctic Animal Freebie &nbsp Just this mailing list to get the FREE printable to go along with this activity!

My kids know what cold is, we don’t shy away from going out in the cold Saskatchewan winters. But arctic cold is something completely different.

This is a great arctic animals for kids activity to demonstrate how penguins, polar bears, and other arctic animals stay warm with their layers of fat we grabbed a package of Crisco (vegetable shortening) from the store and did up a bowl of icy cold water.

What you need:

  • ice cubes
  • cold water
  • shortening
  • baggies
  • latex gloves – optional

What we did to learn how animals stay warm in icy water:

We put a large bowl of water into the freezer to let it get extra cold, and then added the ice cubes.

We put a bare hand into the icy water first, just to get an idea of how cold the water really was.

The original plan was to wear latex gloves, but I couldn’t find them locally, so we simply stuck our hand inside a Ziploc sandwich bag. A bar of shortening wrapped about the hand, and then another sandwich bag on covering the shortening, to keep it from falling off in the bowl.

Arctic Animals - Science Experiment

It looks crazy, but worked out great. And best of all for this Momma, clean up was basically non-existent because we just had to slip our hand out of the baggie and toss the whole thing in the garbage.

Arctic Animal Science Experiment

Arctic Animals Science Experiment

Materials

  • ice cubes
  • cold water
  • shortening

Tools

  • baggies
  • large bowl

Instructions

    1. We put a large bowl of water into the freezer to let it get extra cold, and then added the ice cubes.
    2. We put a bare hand into the icy water first, just to get an idea of how cold the water really was.
    3. The original plan was to wear latex gloves, but I couldn't find them locally, so we simply stuck our hand inside a Ziploc sandwich bag. A bar of shortening wrapped about the hand, and then another sandwich bag on covering the shortening, to keep it from falling off in the bowl.

© Ashley Mullen
Category: Experiments

Kids thoughts on this animal science experiment:

Gauge did think I was crazy when I was covering his hand in shortening, in a bag. And then asked him to put his hand in the water, though he wanted to do it first.

Arctic Animals - Science Experiment

He loved it once he realized his hand wasn’t getting wet or cold. All three took turns doing this and said their hand stayed dry and warm.

Arctic Animals - Science Experiment

Recommended Products for more Science Fun:

Arctic Animal Science Experiment

Similar posts that you may be interested in:

Soil Testing Science for Gardening

Science YouTube Channels for Kids

Shark Buoyancy Science Experiment

Filed Under: Experiments, Homeschool, Kids Activities, Natural Homeschooling Tagged With: animal science experiment, arctic animals, cold science experiment, how arctic animals stay warm, polar bear science experiment, science curriculum, Science Experiments

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A Little About Me

I'm Ashley, a Canadian secular homeschool mom of 3, living in Nova Scotia.

I share our adventures in homeschooling and parenting.

You can usually find us at the library surrounded by books.
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