Solids & Liquids

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Home : 2004 : January : 6

Solids & Liquids
By deb

A fun activity is to pass an ice cube around a circle of children until it melts. First try this when the kids are wearing mittens and then with bare hands. See how long it takes the ice cube to melt by counting how many
children you have to pass the cube to each time. Conclusion: body heat from bare hands cause the cube to melt faster than the cube passed to mittened hands. Mittened hands didn't feel as cold as bare hands - the mittens insulated the skin from the cold!

Another favorite winter experiment is to make snow cream (ice cream) with heavy cream, sugar, vanilla, baggies and rock salt.

Ice cream ingredients are placed in double-bagged quart sized ziplock baggies. These are placed in double-bagged gallon sized ziplock baggies, with ice and rock salt between the 2 sized bags. Zip all baggies securely zipped (!) and shake like heck! Kids wear mittens (important!) and try to think of as many different ways to shake their bags as possible. "Soft serve" takes about 20-25 minutes, but even "shake" consistency is delicious! I usually have kids work in pairs and invite a few helpers to supervise. Conclusion, the coldness moves from the ice to the cream, turning it from a liquid to a solid. (Just like water's reaction to cold!) You can even talk about how the outside of the bag gets wet by condensation!