Saturday, February 2, 2013

Weather and science in CM1 and CM2

Last week we got some very cold temperatures in Maine.  The thermometer was down to -22 C or -7 F so it was the perfect weather to try an experiment. We were about to study thermal expansion:





First we filled some latex balloons (16 inch diameters) with a little bit of water to give it a little shape. Then we added some food coloring, all sorts of beads, and glitter.








We added some more water until we could hardly carry them. They were pretty heavy and wiggling. We were so scared they might explode in 
the kitchen.

 We put our balloons outside in the snow and waited.


It took 1 night for the balloons to explode. We could notice that all our beads and glitter created a darker spot due to the gravity!
They looked like giant marbles.