Spotlight 2026 Term 2 Tui

Tui Class Spotlight

Tui class have been busy diving into some exciting science investigations over the past few weeks. Following on from our Term 1 topic (where we learned how our Pacific and European ancestors navigated their journeys across the Pacific Ocean and explored the voyaging vessels they use), we moved onto a more scientific focus this term: investigating floating and sinking. We have been fortunate to have access to the House of Science ‘Float My Boat’ kit. It has been a fantastic resource to guide our learning and provide practical activities that the students have loved. 

The students began by predicting, then testing, a variety of everyday objects to see if they would float or sink, introducing them to the concept of density. Next, they engineered their own boats out of tin foil. Through trial and error, they discovered that a boat’s buoyancy depends heavily on its size and shape. This directly influenced how many washers their boats could carry before taking on water!  The students then extended their understanding by calculating the density of several regular-shaped solid materials, looking closely at the relationship between volume and mass. We are still in the process of analysing these results and comparing the materials' densities to that of water to see if those with a density less than water do, in fact, float.

Lastly, Tui students had a great time attempting the 'flinking' challenge. Their task was to create a ‘flinker’ -an object placed in a container of water that neither floats on the top nor sinks to the bottom, but suspends itself right in the middle of the water. Using a variety of small objects like buttons, pins, washers, and paperclips, they attempted to weigh down either a floating polystyrene ball or a bottle cork to achieve perfect buoyancy... with some mixed results!