Over the holiday break we finally got some snow around here. On our first day back, I asked the students if they had any questions about snow or winter. One student asked why the snow stays on the ground. After seeing variations of this "snowman in a bag" idea all over the internet, I decided to use it as a backdrop for exploring why sometimes snow stays frozen and sometimes it melts.
Before school started I made these bags and filled them with equal amounts of snow. During our welcome circle, I let the students examine the bags and make predictions about what might happen to each bag if we left one outside and one inside. Then we put one outside and one inside, and went on with our day.
During every transition, we took a few minutes to check on the bags. Every time we checked, we discussed and wrote down our observations about the two bags.
The timing of our class was pretty much perfect because by the end of the class, the inside bag was almost completely melted by the end of the day, while the outside bag stayed frozen.
I was pleased with how well this activity turned out, and how engaged the kids were in checking the bags and talking about what was happening. They were pretty quick to make the connection that the bag inside melted because it was warmer inside, but I also tried to help them think about why snow stays frozen and then melts outside.
While we were outside at recess I pointed out that the snow melted in some places of the yard, but not in others, and asked them why they thought that was happening?
We noticed that the places in the yard with the most snow were mostly in the shade. This led to a great discussion about how the sun helps to warm up the air, and that if the air gets warm enough, the snow melts. We will keep exploring snow and the science behind it throughout the month, but this activity definitely got us off to a great start!
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