Physical Property: Buoyancy - displacement.

Did you ever notice that when something floats in water, part of it is actually under water? As it sinks (even a little bit) it pushes away the water until that amount of water weighs the same as the thing that is floating.

If the thing you try to float is too heavy, it cannot push away enough water to be the same as how much it weighs. If that happens, the thing will sink.

Ask an adult to help you with an experiment (a test) that can show you how this works: Float a small plastic boat in water and notice how deep the boat sinks when it is empty. Then add pennies to the boat and watch how the boat sinks deeper and deeper the more pennies you add. The pennies make the boat weigh more and more. If you add enough pennies, the boat will sink deep enough so that water reaches the top and then the whole thing sinks.

Blow up a balloon and float it on water. It will not sink very far because it is not very heavy. If you look really close, where the balloon touches the water, you can see a little dent in the water under the balloon. That's the place where the water is pushed out of the way. If you try this test with a ball that is exactly the same size as the balloon, the ball will sink deeper before it floats. Because the ball is heavier than the balloon, it has to push more water out of the way before it can float.

It is not just how heavy something is that makes it float or sink. Look how heavy real boats are -- and they still float. Floating or sinking has to do with the amount of water pushed out of the way. Any boat will sink if you put enough stuff inside it -- just like your experiment showed. Small, heavy things like a marble or a rock cannot float because they cannot push enough water out of the way to be the same as how much they weigh..

So remember, anything that floats weighs the same as the water pushed out of the way.