EXPERIMENT

1
Fill the plastic soda bottle to the VERY top with water.
 2
Fill the glass eyedropper about 1/4 full with water. You may
need to experiment with the amount of water in the eye
dropper, as it should be just enough to make it so the eye
dropper is barely floating.
 3
Place the eye dropper into the soda bottle. The eye dropper
should float and the water in the bottle should be overflowing.
Seal the bottle with the cap.

4
Gently squeeze the sides of the bottle and notice how the eye
dropper (called a diver) sinks. Release your squeeze and it
floats back up to the top.
 5
Squeeze again and observe the water level in the eyedropper
(it goes up).
 6
Practice making the diver go up and down without making it
look like you’re squeezing the bottle. Amaze your friends with
your ability to make the eyedropper obey your commands!

HOW DOES IT WORK

Squeezing the bottle causes the diver (the eye dropper) to
sink because the increased pressure forces water up into the
diver, compressing the air at the top of the eye dropper. This
increases the mass, and density, of the diver causing it to
sink. Releasing the squeeze decreases the pressure on the
air at the top of the eyedropper, and the water is forced back
out of the diver, lowering its density and allowing it to float
back to the top of the bottle.

SCIENCE FAIR CONNECTION

Making an eye dropper move up and down is pretty cool, but
it isn’t a science fair project.   You can create a science fair
project by identifying a variable, or something that changes, in
this experiment. Let’s take a look at some of the variable
options that might work.
 Try changing the size of the plastic bottle or eye dropper.
Does the size affect how hard you have to squeeze to make
the diver move?
 Try changing the water temperature. Do different
temperatures affect the density of the diver?
That’s just a couple of ideas, but you aren’t limited to those!
Try coming up with different ides of variables and give them a
try. Remember, you can only change one thing at a time.  If
you are testing different bottle sizes, make sure that the other
factors are remaining the same!
Xx

The 13 articles in the report were written by John Orlando, PhD, program director at
Norwich University, as part of the popular Teaching with Technology column
on Faculty Focus. You’ll find that the articles are loaded with practical information as
well as links to valuable resources. Here are the articles featured in the report:

 Using VoiceThread to Build Student Engagement

 Wikipedia in the Classroom: Tips for Effective Use
 Blogging to Improve Student Learning: Tips and Tools for Getting Started
 Prezi: A Better Way of Doing Presentations
 Why You Should be Using Social Bookmarking Tools
 Unleashing Innovation: The Structured Network Approach
 Save Time and Teach Better with Screencasting
 Integrating Social Media into Online Education
 Using Polling and Smartphones to Keep Students Engaged
 Lecture Capture: A New Way to Think about Hybrid Courses
 Personal Learning Environments Help Students Extend Learning Beyond the
Classroom
 Education Remix: Unlocking Creativity to Boost Learning
 Effective Uses of Video in the Classroom

Whether the courses you teach are face-to-face, onli