"The Leaping Ping Pong Ball"

To start off class, Dr. E showed us a little experiment online. There was a picture of water and then there was an object on the end of the pole and Dr. E asked the class to hypothesize whether or not, when the object was submerged, if it would hit the bottom. From that little experiment, Dr. E was able to show the class that when an object is submerged into water, the object pushes aside water, displacing a volume of water. The weight of the water pushed aside equals a buoyant force. After participating in the short experiment, Dr. E then allowed the class to do an experiment with their groups. This was by far the most enjoyable experiment that i think the class has ever done. Before starting out the experiment, our group hypothesized what we think would happen and then began the experiment. For the experiment, each group was given two beakers, a funnel, and a ping pong ball. The materials person then placed the funnel in one of the beakers with the ping pong ball it the funnel and the other beaker was placed 2-3 cm from the other beaker. The group members then had to secure the beakers with their hands while one member of the group blew really hard onto the ping pong ball, trying to have the ball leap to the other beaker. This sounds like it would be rather easy, but this experiment was actually difficult, it was a very hard task blowing onto the ball and trying to have it land in the other beaker. I counted how many times it took, and by the end, it had taken 19 times to finally blow the ball into the other beaker. This experiment was very fun and I am definitely going to keep this is mind when I am a teacher!