To carry out this experiment, freeze A4 sheets of black construction paper overnight before giving them to your youngsters, along with a magnifying glass, on the next day with a decent snowfall. Lead your students out of the classroom and have them hold their pieces of construction paper flat in their hand. Once children have collected a few snowflakes on their paper, bring them back inside, and have them draw a picture of their snowflakes on a separate piece of paper. Challenge students to think about why snowflakes are different, and explain that no two snowflakes can ever be identical.
Snow and ice on our sidewalks and highways is a major concern during the deepest winter months. Get your young scientists to test the effect of different substances on melting ice and think about how the substances could be used to help resolve the problem of snow and ice on our sidewalks. Freeze an ice tray of regular tap water so that each compartment has the same volume of water before testing one cube and one substance at a time. Place the cube in the bottom of a glass beaker before testing 1 teaspoonful of different substances, such as fine salt, thick salt crystals, pure vinegar, sand, furniture polish and lemon juice, for example. As the substance is heaped on the ice, start a stopwatch and measure how long it takes for the ice to melt completely. Compare the performance of different substances melting the ice, based on the length of time.
Wait for a fairly consistent snowfall before getting children to construct a device to measure the level of snowfall. Take a flat, square waterproof board at least six by six inches, and glue a ruler so it points directly upward in the center of the board. Apply even, constant pressure to the glue between the ruler and the board until it has dried. Take your board and ruler outside during a snowfall, and place it on a flat surface for a set length of time, such as four hours. Once a sufficient amount of time has elapsed, bring your snow-measuring device back inside and see how many inches of snow has fallen during your experiment. Note the snowfall to the nearest 1/4 inch, wipe away the snow, and repeat the experiment the next day it snows to see which day had more snow.
This simple and fun experiment gets youngsters to look at colloids, emulsions and the chemistry behind making ice cream. Blend half a cup of cream with half a cup of milk. Pour the contents into a zip-close plastic bag, and seal. Fill a second, larger bag with ice and large salt crystals, which reduces the temperature further. Place the bag of cream and milk inside the larger bag, and gather up the ice and salt crystals around it. Wait five and 10 minutes for the solution to freeze, occasionally shaking the bags to add air to make the ice cream fluffy. Remove the internal bag, brush away any excess ice or salt, unseal the bag, and serve your ice cream.