It's -17 Degrees and I'm Heading Outside!!!! Maybe?

The Polar Vortex has Wisconsin squarely in it's sights. Dog owners are breaking out the booties before letting the dog out to do their business and schools under the Vortex have closed for a cold day.  (For those of you reading this somewhere warm a cold day is where the temperature/wind chill is so cold that it is considered too dangerous to stand outside and wait for the bus.)

                                               Buck in his winter booties. By Peter Zuzga


In my years of living here, there and everywhere I've lived in some pretty cold places. Thankfully though I never owned a thermometer. I never needed a contraption to tell me how cold it was all I had to do was listen to the snow. The higher the pitch of the snow squeak the colder the temperature.  When you walk your weight squishes the snow causing it to melt slightly and "flow" out from under your boot, but when the temperature of the snow gets below 14 degrees Fahrenheit the snow doesn't melt as you step down on it. The squeaking is the sound the ice crystals make as they move against each other.  The louder the squeak the colder the temperature. While going to college in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont (Johnson State College) my fiends and I had our own ideas of what cold was. If you made it across our small campus and your eyelashes were frozen together and the moisture from your nose had frozen your scarf fast to your face for most of your next class THAT WAS COLD! Squeaky snow not so cold.

Today it is cold and tonight is going to be even colder, oh the possibilities!! Nerds and science geeks across the vast world wide web have posted and blogged about ways to have fun in the cold. Maybe it all those years I spent teaching afterschool science experiment classes that is making me want to try all those experiments you can only do when it is REALLY COLD!  First on the list freezing a cup of boiling water instantly.   I'll let this really smart person explain.

 



 Next on the list frozen bubbles. You can also take one of those big bubble wands and just hold it out to watch the ice crystals form on the big loop.

Then there is my favorite cold weather experiment which you don't need it to be this cold outside to do. Blubber, blubber, blubber. This is really simple all you need is some blocks of lard (animal fat sold in grocery stores everywhere) and a few sealable bags. Take the lard and two sandwich sized bags and squish one block each into the bag. You want a lot of lard in each bag taking out as much of the air as possible. Then take another bag and place your two lard filled bags inside it. Stick one hand in-between the two lard filled bags in some ice water. The layers of lard will insulate your hand and keep it from feeling cold. This was a favorite of mine as a way to talk about insulation. I would then make kids insulate film canisters filled with liquid using natural insulation which animals collect to line their nests with.  Once they had insulated the canister we would place them in a snow drift and wait 25 minutes inside. The kids with the worst insulation would get and edible ice pop while those with the best insulation got chilled juice.

If you have fun trying any of these experiments, BUNDLE UP exposed skin can freeze in 30 minutes or less at these temperatures!!

More science experiments you can have fun with indoors where it is warm. Caution and a responsible adult needed.

http://kidscorner.org/html/science2.php
http://eo.ucar.edu/webweather/activities.html
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/experiments.html