Making a paper clip float - Science

Making a paper clip float

The left photo is the sunken paper clip and the right photo is the floating paper clip with a piece of tissue.

 Today my class and I did a science experiment called making a paper clip float. It's not that amazing but it was easy to do. I did it with my partner Shontelle and it was a success. I was happy and so was my partner. 😁

We needed:

Clean dry paper clip

tissue paper

A beaker filled with water

Pencil

What to do

1. Fill the bowl with water
2. Try to make the paper clip float…not much luck, huh?
3. Tear a piece of tissue paper about half the size of a CARR card.
4. GENTLY drop the tissue flat onto the surface of the water
5. GENTLY place a dry paper clip flat onto the tissue (try not to touch the water or the tissue)
6. Use the eraser end of the pencil to carefully poke the tissue (not the paper clip) until the tissue sinks. With some luck, the tissue will sink and leave the paper clip floating!

It works with a little thing that scientist call it surface tension. Scientist say that there is a sort of skin on the surface of water that might be making the paperclip float. The paper clip is truly not floating, it is being held up by the surface tension.