Lead your class or youngsters through the science experiments that you plan to complete as a group. Introduce the concepts of ice, melting and tie the issue into everyday, real life situations, such as the gritting of sidewalks and roads with industrial salt each winter to keep roads safe and clear of snow and ice. Ask students to think about other occasions when melting is prevalent, such as when metals are heated to very high temperatures, for example.
Once you have introduced the basics of your class experiment to your young scientists, get each to privately write down his own hypothesis for the project. Inform students that hypotheses should be no more than a couple of sentences and written in basic, simple and scientific language. Where possible, youngsters should attempt to explain why they have predicted an experiment will result in a certain way. In an experiment where identical ice cubes have four different substances poured onto them, for example, young scientists should hypothesize about which product will melt ice slowest and fastest.
You must emphasize to your scientific youngsters the importance of accuracy and precision when completing science experiments. When conducting an experiment looking at what makes ice melt the fastest, for example, it is crucial that the ice tested using each substance is the same. Show students, for example, how to fill individual sections in an ice tray to the same level using a medicine dropper. Furthermore, show young scientists how to test each individual ice cube by dripping a medicine dropper full of a substance, such as salt water, over the ice cube. Finally, demonstrate the usefulness of timing the ice melting process using a stopwatch or timer so you can compare the ice melting capabilities of different substances.
Show young scientists the quickest and clearest way to make the experiment results digestible to the audience, such as at a science fair. When completing an experiment to compare the boiling point of chocolate, candle wax, water and butter, for example, you could use thermometers to measure the boiling point of each substance before displaying this as a bar chart with one bar for each substance tested. Make sure young scientists are aware that they should only use visual aids to enhance a presentation and that the main strength comes from the ability to speak and answer questions confidently about the melting experiment.