Snow Much Fun at HWS!
Throughout the school year, BPS101 Enrichment Coach Julie Brach and Hoover-Wood Elementary School LRC Director Cheryl Koll plan and facilitate hands-on STEM enrichment activities for HWS students before school.
This December, Mrs. Brach and Mrs. Koll came up with a three-week “Snow Much Fun” course based on story of Snowflake Bentley. The free course was open to HWS students in grades 3-5 and limited to 20 students. It filled fast! It was so popular that Mrs. Brach and Mrs. Koll are running it again in January.
During week one, students made snowflake origami. in week two, students made salt crystal snowflakes, and during the final week, students made snow.
For the faux snow project, students paired in teams to make three kinds of snow: instant snow (add a spoonful of sodium polyacrylate to water and it doubles in size. It’s the same material used to absorb liquid in disposable diapers), baking soda snow (baking soda + water), and paper snow (bits of paper towels + baking soda + water + vinegar). Take a look at this team’s reaction to the paper snow:
After making each “recipe,” the teams compared each finished product to real snow.
As students were making their faux snow, comments like, “Oh, this feels like mashed potatoes,” “You can make snowballs out of this!” and “This feels chilly, like snow,” could be heard.
At the end of the activity, Mrs. Brach asked students which type of snow they liked best: instant, baking soda, paper, or a blend of any of the three. The results of the experiment were surprisingly mixed and came down to students’ feelings about texture and temperature. Not surprisingly, there was a run on hand wipes.
“Science is messy,” said Mrs. Brach.
And, that’s what makes lab work so much fun!
