Snow Science
Fascinating winter projects to try with your kids.
Ann Douglas

Remember how fascinating you found snow back when you were kid – how you’d stop to study each snowflake as it landed on the back of your hand and how you’d savour the sensation of each snowflake as it melted into a tiny speck of water on the tip of your tongue? You can recapture some of the magic and wonder of snow by trying some of these fun snow science projects with your kids.

• Study a snowflake under a magnifying glass. Here’s an activity that’s guaranteed to be a hit with kids of all ages, including the toddler crowd. Take a sheet of black construction paper and a magnifying glass outdoors during the next snowfall. Give the piece of paper a few minutes to cool off and then use it to catch some snowflakes. Then examine the snowflakes under your magnifying glass before they have a chance to melt. Your kids will be amazed to see how different each snowflake looks when you study them up close.

• Make some snowflake fossils. This activity is a bit more involved than the previous one, but it will score lots of points with the budding Einsteins in your family. You’ll need a box with a lid (a shoebox is ideal), a can of Crystal Clear liquid plastic spray (available at craft supply stores), some glass microscope slides, and a microscope.

Here’s what to do. Place the glass slides in the box with the lid and place it on your porch overnight. These items need to be cold in order to prevent the snowflakes from melting when they land. When you’re ready to start catching some snowflakes, spray a thin layer of Crystal Clear on the microscope slide. Then hold it out so that a few snowflakes can land on it. When you’re finished collecting snowflakes, put the slide back in the box and put the lid back on. Leave the box outside for a few hours so that the plastic has a chance to harden. When you bring the slide indoors later on, the snowflake itself will melt, but you will have captured its shape in the plastic. You can then study these “snowflake fossils” under the microscope.

• Build a snow gauge. Here’s a fun way to measure how much snow falls overnight. Remove the label and the top half from a large, clear plastic pop bottle. Then turn the pop bottle into a snow gauge by drawing a scale (in inches or centimeters) up the side of the bottle using permanent marker. Place it in your yard and then check it in the morning to see how much snow fell overnight. Your kids might enjoy recording their findings in a snow log that they keep from year to year.

• Create your own backyard glacier. Fill a large plastic pail with snow and then bring it indoors so that the snow has a chance to start melting. Then put it outside again. Add another layer of snow on top and then allow that layer to partially melt. You’ll soon end up with glacier-like layers of snow and ice.

• Try some winter bubble fun. If your kids love blowing bubbles in the summer, they’ll have even more fun blowing bubbles when the temperature goes below zero. It’s possible to catch the bubbles on the bubble wand and watch them freeze.

• Whip up some frozen surprises. Here’s a fun winter activity for the preschool set. Place some toys in a milk carton and fill the milk carton with water. Place it outside until it is frozen and then bring it back inside. Then peel off the carton and place the ice block in a large bowl. Your child will enjoy watching the toys reappear as the ice block melts.

• Make a frozen rainbow. Here’s a variation on the previous activity. Instead of freezing toys in the carton, freeze layer upon layer of water that has been coloured with food colouring. If you use enough colours, you’ll end up with a rainbow effect. Your kids will enjoy watching the rainbow melt before their eyes.

• Find out how much air is trapped in snow. Fill a pail with snow and bring it into the house. Your kids will be amazed to see how little water is in the pail once the snow has had a chance to melt. This is because one of the key “ingredients” of snow is air.

Here are some indoor science projects for your kids to try:

• Ice cube magic. Float an ice cube in a glass of water and ask your kids to try to pick up the ice with a piece of string. They won’t be able to do it. Then tell them to try again after sprinkling a bit of salt on the ice cube. Voila! The string will stick like magic.

• Floating flakes. Help your kids discover why snowflakes float rather than zooming to the ground like raindrops. You’ll need two sheets of paper: one crumpled and one flat. Have your kids drop both sheets at the same time to see which one hits the ground first. They’ll discover that the crumpled sheet of paper – which behaves like a raindrop – takes up a small amount of space and falls more quickly than a flat sheet of paper – which behaves like a snowflake. As Janice VanCleave explains in her book Janice VanCleave’s 201 Awesome, Magical, Bizarre, and Incredible Experiments, “the flat paper, like snowflakes, falls slowly because it has a greater exposed area and thus receives more upward force from the air.”

• Go surfing for snowflakes. A snowflake is a snowflake is a snowflake right? Not according to California physics professor Ken Libbrecht, whose web site – www.snowflake.net – is devoted to celebrating the snowflake. (Apparently, one visitor to the site used his detailed snowflake designs as the basis for a tattoo! Now that’s a testimonial!)

• Create some blueprints for your own backyard igloo. You can find some detailed instructions on building an igloo in your backyard by reading this online excerpt from The Complete Wilderness Training Guide by Hugh McManners (Dorling Kindersley, 1999).

Ann Douglas is the author of The Mother of All Pregnancy Books and The Mother of All Baby Books. She can be contacted via her web site.