You will need:
- A plastic container with a lid
- Unpopped pop corn
- A large marble
- A ping pong ball
Implementation
- Put the ping pong ball at the bottom of the container.
- The fill the container about 2/3 of the way with corn. Make sure that the ping pong ball stays at the bottom. Then place the marble on top.
- Put the lid on and shake it up! It doesn’t matter if you shake it up and down or side to side… Just shake! It won’t take much.
Ta da! The marble has turned into a ping pong ball!
The Science
The ping pong ball is much less dense than the corn, so it quickly makes its way to the top of the corn. The marble is more dense than the corn, so it sinks down into the corn. This is the same concept as the ping pong ball floating in water – the ball is less dense than the water, so it floats. Everyone expects a ping pong ball to float in water, but the way it behaves in the corn is really fascinating!