Galileo Experiment

We are currently reading about Galileo. We have chosen two people to study each month and Galileo's birthday was in February. Today we were reading about how he came up with specific gravity by comparing an object of a certain mass to the same mass of water and saying how much it weighed compared to the water. For example, gold has a specific gravity of 19. We measured out a cup of different things including water and compared them. Since we don't have a small scale or a balance we improvised with our hands. We then put our things in order by weight. Heaviest to lightest it was water, rice, beans, animal crackers, and then puffs. We decided rice and beans are both close to the same as water so they have a specific gravity of about1, but the crackers and puffs were much lighter. We poured out half our water and it was still heavier, so then we tried 1/4 a cup and it was the same as the crackers. We went all the way down to a tablespoon or about 1/16 of a cup for the puffs. So our animal crackers had a specific gravity of .25 and the puffs of about .0625. We had lots of fun learning about Galileo and specific gravity (and fractions and decimals of course). I love homeschool moments like this!