Can water float on water

Difficulty
Time Required	Very Short (≤ 1 day)
Prerequisites	None
Material Availability	Readily available
Cost	Low ($20 - $50)
Safety	No issues

Abstract

Of course it can, you say: ice is water and ice floats! And you're right. But we're talking about water in the liquid phase (the title reads better without getting overly specific). So how about it? Can liquid water float on water? Check out this project to find out.

Objective

The goal of this project is to investigate what happens to layers of water with different densities. You will investigate density differences caused by both temperature and salinity.

Credits

Andrew Olson, Ph.D. and Sandra Slutz, Ph.D., Science Buddies

Sources

• Staff, date unknown. "Salinity and Deep Ocean Currents," Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences [accessed May 4, 2006]http://www.bigelow.org/shipmates/deep_currents_standards.html.
• GourmetSleuth.com, 2001. "Gram Conversion Calculator," GourmetSleuth.com [accessed May 4, 2006] http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/gram_calc.htm.

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Last edit date: 2013-02-22

Hypothesis

The hypothesis of my project is that, if the waters are of different density, then, the water with the lesser density would float on top of the water with lower density.

Independent Variable

The independent variable is water of different density.

Dependent Variable

The dependant variable is whether water of different density can float on each other.