Nice Day for a Fishing Trip: Experiment

By Dan

It’s bright and sunny and warm outside! Seems like a nice day to venture down to the river or pond and try to catch some fish. But…what about those who do not live near water? Do not fear…because now you can fish in your backyard, on your deck or even at your kitchen table!

Try fishing for clippies and learn about surface tension of water.

here’s what you’ll need:
6 paper clips (colored ones make it more fun)
large bowl of water
one facial tissue (kleenex, etc)
2 pencils (or sticks)
1 piece of string (start shorter and then try various lengths to see how well you do)

What to do:

Straighten one of the paper clips, shaping one end into a hook. You might need an adult to help with that. Tie one end of the string to the paper clip hook and one to the pencil (or stick). Open and lay the facial tissue on the top of your bowl of water. Next, quickly but gently place the remaining paper clips, one at a time, on top of the tissue. Then, tap around the edges of the tissue with the pencil (or stick) until it sinks to the bottom of the bowl, leaving the “clippie fish” afloat.

Now that your homemade fishing pond is sticked, use the hook you made to see how many clippies you can catch before they ‘swim away.’

If you are careful, you’ll hook all five clippie fish. If not, the clippies escape to the bottom of the bowl.

Why does this happen?

Surface tension, that invisible skin that covers the water in the bowl, holds the paper clip fish within reach of your hook. As long as you don’t break that tension, you can keep fishing and end up with the catch of the day! Unfortunately, if you break the surface tension with your hook, the weight of the clips causes them to sink, so be careful!

photo credit: nih.gov