How Much Does a Half-Kilogram of Water "Weigh"?

Many educators have utilized the phenomenon of the so-called "hydrostatic paradox" to actively engage students in classroom instructional activities related to hydrostatic equilibrium. Various approaches requiring different levels of mathematical knowledge have been proposed in the literature to provide students clear explanations of this paradox. However, these attempts take for granted that students have already been taught and have internalized the concepts of force and pressure. The hydrostatic paradox is then usually introduced as an application problem for the evaluation of the knowledge acquired.