Name: Date:

Worksheet

Why iron ships float?

Adapted from COMMON SCIENCE by Carleton W. Washburne

When people first talked about building iron ships, others laughed
at them. "Iron sinks," they said, "and your boats will go to the
bottom of the sea." If the boats were solid iron this would be true,
for iron is certainly much heavier than water. But if the iron is bent
up at the edges,—as it is in a dish pan,—it has to push much more
water aside before it goes under than it would if it were flattened
out. The water displaced, or pushed aside, would have to take up
as much room as was taken up by the pan and all the empty space
inside of it, before the edge would go under. Naturally this amount
of water would weigh a great deal more than the empty pan.

But suppose you should fill the dish pan with water, or suppose it leaked full. Then you would have the
weight of all the water in it added to the weight of the pan, and that would be heavy enough to push
aside the water in which it was floating and let the pan sink. This is why a ship sometimes sinks when it
springs a leak. The earth's gravity is pulling on the ship and on the water. If the ship has displaced
(pushed aside) its own weight of water, gravity is pulling down on the water as hard as it is on the ship;
so the ship cannot push any more water aside, and if there is enough air space in it, the ship floats.

Perhaps the easiest way to say it is like this: Anything that is lighter than the same volume of water will
float; since a cubic foot of wood weighs less than a cubic foot of water, the wood will float; since a
quart of oil is lighter than a quart of water, the oil will float; since a pint of cream is lighter than a pint
of milk, the cream will rise. In the same way, anything that is lighter than the same volume of air will be
pushed up by the air. When a balloon with its passengers weighs less than the amount of air that it
takes the place of at any one time, it will go up. Since a quart of warm air weighs less than a quart of
cold air, the warm air will rise.

1. Why did people laugh when people first talked about building iron ships?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________

2. Why does iron not float on water?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

3. Why does wood float on water?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

4. Why does a ship that is made of iron float? Explain.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

1
© Copyright 2014: http://www.biglearners.com. All rights reserved. CCSS.RI.3.1: Reading Informational Text
Name: Date:
Worksheet

Answers: Why iron ships float?

*Descriptive answers may vary. Parents/teachers should check the answers provided by students for correctness.

1. They laughed because they thought that iron ships would sink to the bottom of the sea because iron could not
float.

2. Because iron is heavier than water.

3. Because wood is lighter than water.

4. An iron ship floats because it is constructed to be of a certain shape. In this shape, it displaces more water
than its own weight. If an object can push water that weighs more than its own weight, it will float.

2
© Copyright 2014: http://www.biglearners.com. All rights reserved. CCSS.RI.3.1: Reading Informational Text