Imagine you are in a small boat on a small pond that has no inflow or outflow. If you take an anchor that was sitting on the floor of the boat and lower it over the side until it sits on the ground at the bottom of the pond, will the water level rise slightly, stay the same, or lower slightly?

Two students, Ian and Owen, are discussing this. Ian says that the anchor will still displace just as much water when it is sitting on the bottom of the pond as it does when it is in the boat. After all, adding the anchor to the boat causes the water level in the lake to rise, and so would immersing the anchor in the pond. So Ian reasons that both displacements would be equal, and the lake level remains unchanged.