Floating Ball

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009We have a hairdryer that teacher brought to school today. We know that when it is turned on that air rises from it. We got different kinds of balls and put them in the air stream to see whether they would float on the air stream or not. Here is what we discovered:The ping pong ball is light and filled with air. It floated nicely on the air stream. In fact, sometimes we could get two ping pong balls to float together in the air. The bouncy ball is made of rubber, filled with rubber, and heavier than the ping pong ball. It doesn't float at all. The styrofoam (polystyrene) ball is the lightest of all, filled with styrofoam, if floats really high up for a second, then jumps out of the air stream. It needs to be a little heavier for gravity to work on it and pull it back into the air stream every time it floats too high. We love this investigation because we can try it easily at home.