Marine engineer family STEM story time
Challenge families to design and build a boat together.
Bringing families into the setting
For this activity, you’ll invite children’s parents or carers into your setting, so they can work alongside each other.
Why have family STEM story time in EYFS?
Children’s parents, carers and other family members all help shape children’s ideas about themselves and what they should do with their lives, including what would be a suitable future job for them.
A family STEM story time is an opportunity to introduce STEM careers, ideas and activities in a relaxed and enjoyable way. STEM story time also provides an opportunity to positively model how adults and children can share stories together.
Each session begins with an introduction to a STEM career and the attributes used in the job. There is then a STEM story which introduces a STEM concept or problem to the group. The session then continues with a practical activity based on the concept introduced by the story. This is designed to be completed by an adult and a child working together. They can successfully complete the challenge together, ensuring their experience of STEM is a positive one.
What you will need
- Marine engineer poster
- “Who Sank the Boat?” story book and questions
- A large water tray or a few smaller trays, buckets or bowls of water for testing the boats
- A variety of junk modelling materials – you could include some that will float and some that will not
- Small waterproof animals (or similar) to put in your boats
- Sticky tape – plenty of all of the families to use
- Children’s scissors – a pair or more for each family
Duration
- About 30 minutes
Who Sank the Boat? is widely available from bookshops and education suppliers.
Key vocabulary
Sink – go down below the surface of the liquid – sometimes, but not always, to the bottom of the container or body of water.
Float – to rest on the surface of a liquid without sinking.
Predict/prediction – what is believed will happen in the future based on prior knowledge, experiences, observations and research.
Preparation
Do these things before the session
Collecting the materials
Before you begin the activity think about the animals you have available and how many you want the families to fit in each boat.
You will need enough junk modelling materials for each family to be able to select different components to build their boat and enough tape to fasten it together – especially after it gets wet!
Setting up the Room
Think about:
- Where will you set up your water tray or smaller containers so families can easily access them to test their boats?
- Do you need to protect the floor or furniture from spillages?
- We really enjoy doing this activity in the outdoor area where there is usually plenty of space and no need to worry about spillages.
- How will the families access the junk modelling materials and tape?
- Will each family will have a their own animals or will the group test their boats with the same sets of animals?
- When will you give out the equipment?
- We have found giving out the equipment after reading the story works well, and ensures that everyone can concentrate on listening at the start of the session.
We usually hand out a roll of tape and a pair of scissors to each family group to ensure they all have some, and allow them to access the junk modelling materials by positioning it in several places around the room or outside area.
Where will everyone sit?
If you have already had story times with your families you will know what works best in your setting, but if not, you may want to consider:
- Do you want everyone sitting on chairs, or on the floor?
- Do you want adults to sit on seats, and do you have enough big seats for everyone?
- Do you want adults and children sitting together?
- Where will you put pushchairs or prams with sleeping babies?
- Will you have any children without adults? Where will they sit? Who will help them?
What to do – introductions and story time
Introducing the Career
Start the session by showing families the marine engineer poster and telling them that a marine engineer is a job that uses science. If you have already done some of the activities from the marine engineer unit, you could ask the children to explain to their families what a marine engineer does. If this is a new topic, you could ask the families if they know or what they think a marine engineer does.
Tell everyone that for this activity, they are going to be like marine engineers.
Explain a bit about the types of work that marine engineers do:
- They design, build, test, maintain and repair boats and ships as well as underwater craft such as submarines.
- They are responsible for the internal systems of a ship, which include the propulsion, electrical, refrigeration and steering systems.
- They can be involved in work such as marine surveying, drilling underwater for oil and gas, and in the building of offshore platforms.
You know your families and how much to tell them about the career.
Introducing Attributes
You can introduce the attributes by telling the families that attributes are personal skills or qualities that we already have, or can develop.
You could tell them that marine engineers are:
Curious and want to know which materials and shapes sink and float.
Creative when they design and build things like boats, ships, submarines and oil rigs.
Resilient when their ideas or designs don’t work the first time – they try again to get it right.
During the activity, the children and adults might also be able to identify where they are using these attributes.
Reading the Story
You know the families in your setting and the best way to read a story to them, but to help we have designed these STEM focused questions to use alongside the questioning you would usually use when reading a story.
What to do – Activity
Step 1
Show the marine engineer poster again and use the attributes as part of the activity explanation.
You can tell the families that they are going to be:
Curious like marine engineers and investigate how they can use the junk modelling materials to build a boat for the animals that will fit them all in and will not sink,
Creative like marine engineers by designing and building a boat,
Resilient like marine engineers as if your boat doesn’t float the first time you can try again to get it right.
Step 2
Make sure the families know where to find the materials they need, which animals they need to include and when and where they they will test their boats. Make sure that the adults know that they need to help with the building and testing.
Before they start or while the families are working, you could ask them:
- Which materials will you use to build your boat?
- Why have you chosen these?
- What sort of shape will you build your boat?
- Why do you think this will be best?
- What do you predict will happen when you put your boat into the water?
Step 3
While the families are testing the boats, you could ask:
- Is your boat sinking or floating? Why?
- Which are the best materials for making your boat?
- How are you fastening it together?
- Where do you think you need to put the animals so that the boat doesn’t sink?
- What happens when you put too many animals on your boat?
- How could you fix or improve your boat so that all/more animals could fit on?
Step 4
When the families have finished building, testing and improving, you can remind them of the attributes:
being curious and investigating how to build a boat for the animals that will fit them all in and will not sink,
being creative like marine engineers by designing and building a boat,
and being resilient like marine engineers because if their boat didn’t float the first time they can try again to improve it.
There is a STEM at home activity linked to this activity. This includes foil boat building, more STEM careers information and other activities for the whole family to try at home.
You could tell the families that if they have enjoyed today’s activity, maybe they could be marine engineers in the future.
The Science
This section is for your information. It’s intended to be useful background – you’re welcome to include it in the session, but we expect you’d more commonly draw on it when children or their families have questions.
Why do some materials sink and some materials float?
There are two forces acting on objects in the water. The weight of the object pulls it down, while the upthrust of the water pushes it up. If you’ve tried to hold a beach ball, empty plastic bottle or inflatable under water, you will have felt this upthrust force pushing the object towards the surface. The upthrust force is equal to the weight of water displaced (pushed out of the way) by the object.
If the weight of the object is equal to, or less than, the upthrust, it floats. Things that float are buoyant. If the weight of the object is greater than the upthrust, the object will sink.
Why do some materials float and then sink?
Some materials are light because they are full of holes! Sometimes these are holes you can see, like in a sponge, but some are tiny holes that you can’t see, like in paper. The holes are full of air. Air is not heavy enough to push down into the water, and so materials that are full of air, float. When the materials full of air holes are floating, the water starts to fill up the air holes. The water soaks into the material and makes the weight to pulling down bigger than the force of the water pushing upwards.
Why do some heavy objects float?
An object floating on the water takes up space. To make this space, some of the water is displaced – pushed out of the way. The amount of water displaced is the same as the volume of the object that is below the surface of the water. The more weight you add to the object, the more water it displaces. As the volume of water displaced increases, the upthrust force increases to balance this, and the object floats. There will eventually be a point where the weight of the object becomes greater than the upthrust and the object sinks. To see displacement, you can fill a container almost to the top, then add stones to it, you can see the water level rise as the stones take up space in the water.
The shape of an object will determine if it will sink or float. A lump of iron, such as an anchor, will sink as it is dense and all of its weight is concentrated in one place. This makes its weight greater than the upthrust pushing against it, and so an anchor will sink. If the same amount of iron is made into the hull of a boat, it is spread over a greater area.
The larger boat displaces more water than the anchor and so the upthrust is greater. This means that the same amount of material will float in the shape of a boat, but will sink if it’s in a more compact shape.
Which shapes make the best boats?
Objects with a lower density and a greater volume (flatter, weight spread out) displace more water and will float. The shapes in the photograph are make from the same amount of plasticine.
Gravity pulls the plasticine down with a force equal to the weight of the plasticine. While buoyancy force pushes the plasticine upwards with a force equal to the weight of the water that the plasticine displaces. If the clay can displace a volume of water that equals {or is greater} than the weight of the plasticine, then it will be buoyant and float.
With the boat shape, the displaced water is equal to the weight of the plasticine and it floats. With the ball shape, the displaced water weighs less than the weight of the plasticine and it sinks.
