Mini Lesson #2

Eureka! An Intro to Archimedes

Subject Science
Grade level 8
AZ Science Standard Strand 1, Concept 1, PO1: Identify how diverse people and/or cultures,
past and present, have made important contributions to scientific
innovations.
Measurable Objective
After participating in an interactive story about Archimedes, students will be able to determine
the densities of various objects by using the water displacement method to measure volume and a
Anticipatory Set
Start with a drawing on the whiteboard that looks like this:

Connection to Previous Lesson

?

Have students draw these images in their notebook.

Teaching Input, Connection to Previous Lesson, and Active Involvement
Tell students the following story of Archimedes and the crown. Stop the story to ask the
questions in red to get student input. Text in blue represents material that was covered in the
previous lesson.
The Story of Archimedes and My Grandma

Leslie Ferre

This text was adapted from the transcript of a video (Salata, 2012).

Some of the best opportunities to learn are the moments when we are puzzled, when we begin to
wonder and question. That is why I drew these pictures up here because I want you to wonder how I am
going to connect these things. Did it work?

These moments of wondering have happened throughout history and have led to some truly amazing
discoveries and I am going to give you an example.

This story takes place a long time ago in Greece. There was a man named Archimedes.

He was born in 287 B.C. (2300 years ago) in the city of Syracuse in Sicily.

He was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. He was very well known
and so, one day, Archimedes was summoned by the king of Sicily, Hieron, who had a problem.

The king had ordered a goldsmith to make him a crown out of gold and had given the goldsmith the gold
that he would need.

When the crown was ready, the king suspected that the goldsmith had cheated and used some silver in
the crown, keeping some of the gold for himself. In those days, silver was much less valuable than gold,
which is also true today.

The king asked Archimedes to figure out of the crown was made of pure gold or not, but there was a
catch. Archimedes could not do any damage to the crown.

Archimedes had an idea of where to start. He knew that he needed to check the crown's density to see if
it was the same as the density of pure gold. How do we measure density? Remember, density is love:
mass over volume.

Archimedes knew that pure gold is very dense and silver is less dense.

This meant that if there was silver hidden in the crown, it would be less dense than if it had been made
of pure gold.

So if Archimedes could measure the mass of the crown first, and then measure its volume, he could find
out how dense it was.

This is where it got tricky because it is not easy to measure a crown's volume - it has an irregular shape.

You can't measure its size and multiply like you might for other shapes.
One day, Archimedes was getting ready to take a bath. He may have been a little distracted because he
was still trying to figure out the crown problem and he filled the tub right up to the top.

As he stepped in, what do you think happened?

The water level in the bathtub overflowed as he got in.

Why do you think that might be?

What do you think would have happened if Archimedes dropped a coin in the tub instead?

Why do you think it would be different if he dropped a coin in the tub?

Like you, Archimedes realized that the amount of water that was displaced depended on the volume of
the object being placed below the water.

They say that this discovery excited him so much that he jumped out of the tub and ran through the
streets naked, shouting "Eureka!" That is the Greek word on the board.

Does anyone know what that means?

It comes from the ancient Greek meaning "I found it."

What had he found? A way to solve the king's problem.

Archimedes realized that all he had to do was give the crown a bath, placing it in the water and seeing
how much water was displaced, he could measure the volume, and then calculate the density of the
crown.

If the crown was less dense than pure gold, then the goldsmith most definitely cheated the king.

When Archimedes went back to the king and did his test, the story says, he found that the goldsmith
had indeed cheated the king, and slipped some silver in.

These days, using the way an object displaces water to measure volume is called Archimedes' principle,
which is what you are going to do today.

By the way, Archimedes principle is how my grandmother used to measure butter for baking. In the
olden days, we did not have butter with those handy markings on the paper that we have today. If my
grandmother wanted half a cup of butter, she would put one cup of water in a measuring cup and then
add water until the water level measured what? (1.5 cups)

That is how she was using Archimedes principle and you are going to use it today to find the volume and
density of these irregular objects.

References

Salata, M. (2012, September 6). How taking a bath led to Archimedes' principle. [You Tube Video].
Ted-Ed. Retrieved from htt
Shared Follow Up/Formative Assessment
The part of the story that talks about my grandmother is the formative assessment. Asking
students to predict the volume marking in the baking example is a way to assess whether they
understand the main concept of Archimedes Principle.