Which One Will Freeze the Fastest?

This article was contributed by Jen, a homeschooling mom of three from Beaverton, Oregon. In February the Portland area was hit by a huge snowstorm for these parts and the entire city basically shut down. Jen did this awesome experiment with her kids while they were hunkered down at home.

We took advantage of the snow storm and subfreezing temperature in February to have a little Science Snow Fun! What we did was fill balloons (and a few random party bags) up with water, added some food coloring, and laid them out in different locations outside. 

You’ll see the bags and a balloon on our back deck:

And a few balloons set up on/around a table in the backyard. Will had a clever idea to suspend one balloon from the table itself - see the light blue balloon in the picture below :)

Enter the hypothesis!! We guessed that the balloon suspended in the cold air would freeze the best, as the balloons surrounded by snow (not unlike a snow cave) would stay closer to the 32 degree mark. We weren’t sure how much the wood from the deck would affect the balloons.

In all fairness, to have a truly scientific experiment, we should have filled the balloons all the same size, but without a hose, we were just lucky to get the water in the balloon in the first place :) 

We waited overnight - and then examined each of our balloons/bags.

The bags up on the deck formed crystals, but were mostly liquid:

This was the balloon that had its own snow cave…. Logan is going to open it up… and you’ll see the lesson we learned the hard way: don’t dye balloons with red food coloring…

Not a good choice of color… sorry :(

Moving on!! Here’s Logan taking down the balloon from the table - check out how much snow is actually ON the table!!! 

The balloon that was suspended from the air was the ice “balloon” on the right. The one on the left was a balloon that was on the table, BUT did not have a snow cave around it to keep it “warm” and so it too because an ice balloon :) 

Conclusion: The balloon on the metal table and the one hanging from it froze the best. The balloon and bags that were sitting on the wooden deck hardly froze at all. We think this is because the balloons on the table received cold circulating air from all sides. Plus, metal is a better conductor than wood, meaning that the balloon on the metal table got colder than the balloon that was sitting on the wooden deck.

 

So much fun!!

I love that Jen and her kids used their time at home to have some fun, ask some scientific questions, and discover some new things together. What are some scientific things your family has learned this winter?