Thursday, February 2, 2012

Winter Science

Yesterday was February 1st and according to the weather station in my back yard it was +2 degrees Celsius. Not officially spring yet and but most of the surfaces looked like this;


The baby and I were watching some of the children ‘digging for worms’;


Apparently the springlike weather has them itching to get into the garden. 

On the other side of the yard the children were singing a made up song about ‘doing science’ so I went to check it out.

After asking them a few questions I determined that they had removed a large chunk of ice from the wok and discovered that there had been water below it.  They had added some snow to the water — I assumed it was the beginning of their familiar ‘soup making’ activity — but I was wrong.

They explained that they were doing science — trying to ‘fix the ice’.  They moved the wok to the bench area and sat down.  Then they waited, staring silently at the wok;


I mistakingly assumed that they were trying to melt the slush that they had created so that they would again have water in the bottom of the wok.  I asked if they had moved it into the sunny spot to make it melt faster.

The snort and accompanying look of exasperation led me to believe that I was way off the mark so I asked her what she was trying to do.

‘Make more ice’ was her answer.  ‘Maybe it needs more snow’ she sighed and began adding some more.


The frustration was obvious as she watched the snow transform to more slush.  She declared the experiment to be a failure and went to play tag instead.

Sometimes even in winter you cannot make ice but the experiment is not necessarily over.  We left the slush in the wok — there may be a part two to winter science.

No comments:

Post a Comment