Plankton Wars

So, the other day we had a plankton war. It was a competition for the slowest sinking plankton or one that stayed suspended in the middle of the tank (sounds impossible). I was lucky to have Jawaan as my partner, but neither one of us could decide what we wanted our plankton to have, so we made three of them. The one we actually used in the competition was a chunk of clay flattened with a button and stabbed in every side with a toothpick (8 total). It sounds violent, but it was a really cute plankton! Then we doubted that it would float so we added foil around every other pair of toothpicks, making it look like the top of a windmill. I think we were overly cautious because then it floated too much and we were defeated. The winning teams created plankton that had a greater balance between buoyancy and weight, making them sink slowly.

Photo courtesy of Ms. Richardson