Glacier Activities

We made "glaciers" by freezing layers of gravel and water in bread pans. Then we had fun doing various things with them—scraping them along different surfaces, letting them melt and observing what kind of features were left behind (till, moraines, etc.), and so forth. There are several good ideas for glacier-related activities here.

Maybe the most interesting thing we did, though, was demonstrate how glaciers melt and re-freeze as they move. One book we read said to think of them less as big ice bulldozers, and more as ice conveyor belts. The thawing and freezing of successive layers of glacier ice is an important part of why they move and shape the land the way they do.

This demonstration shows how pressure can force ice to melt (as it does on the bottom of a glacier) even when the temperature itself is not cold enough to cause melting. We set up a block of ice on top of two rulers between two stacks of books, and across the ice we hung a wire tied to two heavy stones. It was a very awkward, improvised set-up—you can see a much tidier example here.

As time passed, the pressure of the wire gradually melted the ice, and the wire began to cut through the ice block. As the children saw this, they predicted that eventually the ice would be cut into two pieces.

But the surprising thing is that the ice re-freezes above the wire as the pressure lessens on a particular place, leaving the wire inside the block of ice—and eventually, allowing the wire to cut all the way through the ice and still leave an intact ice block above it! Fascinating.

We should have gotten big ice-blocks from the store and slid down steep hills atop them, as I occasionally did with youth groups or for ward activities in college. But we didn't. Maybe next time!

Ice Castle Field Trip

I had heard someone talking about this ice castle in Midway, so while Sam was home between Christmas and New Year's, we took a field trip up there to see it. It went right along with our earlier discussion of ice storms, after all! :)

We really, really loved it. I think we went at the perfect time of day (we arrived just before 4 pm) because it wasn't very crowded, the sun was out long enough to reflect off the ice in really beautiful ways, and the light was constantly changing. The ice formations reminded me so much of Carlsbad Caverns---doesn't the picture above look just like this?

First of all, a cute baby. We must establish that, first of all.

Now, the eerie, otherworldly, lit-from-within ice. So delicate! So pale! (This does not actually have lights under it. Although at night, some of it does.)

It's pretty amazing to see the size of this thing. You can read about how they made it on their website. It evolves throughout the winter as temperatures change.

I loved these knobby bits, with a light dust of snow on top. 

Here they are closer-up.

Did you remember a cute baby?

I love the different colors the ice changes as the sun passes through it!

Blue shadows underneath. These look like a bunch of canopy beds with curtains hanging down. Or mushrooms.

Looking up at some jagged icicles. This is so abstract, I love it. You could be looking any direction. Or at one ice crystal, microscopic.

A Junie ice-cube.

More knobs. Vertical this time.

A Ky ice-cube!

More scary jagged-ness

Love these tiny, scale-like shapes

Peeking out of an ice canyon

Sunset catches the edges of the ice

Layers of blue

Long, snaky ice-wall

We stopped by our old friend the Heber Valley Creamery afterwards, and when we were done, it was dark, so I had Sam take me back and drop me off so I could take another run through the castle and see it in the night time. They have lights beneath the ice in several places, making it glow different colors, and it looks really cool. I stand by my assertion that seeing it in the daylight is even more spectacular, though. Still, these pictures are striking:

We loved this! Go see it yourself! (On a Monday afternoon, when it's cheaper and less crowded.)

Borax Crystal Snowflakes

My friend pinned this Snowflake crystal-growing project and I thought it looked fun, so I slotted it into our day about Avalanches and Ice Storms. (If you think that's a stretch, wait till you see me fit the Ice Castle in as a field trip! :)) We have grown a lot of crystals but we've never tried borax crystals before, and they are great! Fast-growing and beautiful. And I do love a project that's well-explained! We made a bunch of these for our own Christmas tree, and to give away as gifts to the boys' choir director, Primary teachers, etc. They were really fun to make!

Oh---also---we found you can reuse the borax solution to make more snowflakes. We used ours three times before it seemed like it wasn't working as well anymore. You just heat up the jar in the microwave until the water is hot enough to dissolve the crystals stuck to the bottom of the jar (3-5 min). Stir, and when the solution is clear again, put a new snowflake in and begin again. You can refresh it with a bit more water and another tablespoon of borax, if desired.

We used brown pipe-cleaner for our first batch, and they were pretty, but I think we liked the white pipe-cleaner better

And here they are on the tree! So pretty.

Avalanches and Ice Storms, and making freezing rain on a tile

One of the most interesting things we learned related to avalanches was about the invention of the "avalanche airbag." We did this demonstration with rice to show how lighter and bigger objects "float to the top" of an avalanche (it makes more sense to me to say that the smaller, denser objects sink to the bottom and push the bigger things up, but all our books described it as "floating," so maybe it is). These pictures don't really show what's going on here, but just put a bunch of toys and small objects into a jar full of rice and then shake the jar. The bigger things rise to the top and sit on top of the rice.

It's based on this principle that the avalanche airbags work. Here is one description, and here are a couple videos.

I think I mentioned earlier how I've never understood freezing rain and ice storms? Well, we learned that it's all about the right layers of air. We don't get them much here, but the pictures we've seen are so beautiful! Too bad they cause so much damage. 

Here's a good graphic explanation

Here's another diagram explaining the temperatures necessary for each type of precipitation.

One thing that's present in an ice storm is supercooled rain, which is basically rain that should be ice (it's at a temperature below 32 degrees F) but isn't, either because it has nothing to crystallize onto or because it hasn't had time to freeze. When this supercooled rain hits a cold surface, it freezes instantly onto the surface. We also learned about the types of ice, glaze (clear and smooth) and rime (bumpy and white because of tiny air pockets when it splashed up---it looks more like frost).

This demonstration uses supercooled water to make glaze on a ceramic tile. The instructions we had tried to make supercooled water by using distilled water (fewer dust/mineral particles in the water to provide a "hold" for ice crystallization) in a spray bottle and then removing the bottle from the fridge before it was totally frozen. We followed the instructions, but I'm not sure if our water actually became supercooled, or if it didn't but even water that is nearly supercooled works okay for this. Either way, it worked and it was cool!

To do this activity, you put a ceramic tile (or a smooth rock) into the freezer overnight. Pour distilled water into a spray bottle with the spray lid off. Let it sit, covered with a bit of saran wrap so dust doesn't get in, at room temperature for an hour or two. Then put the covered bottle in the freezer for another couple hours, until the edges are starting to freeze but the middle is still liquid. One of the times we did this, we let the bottle sit in the freezer too long and it froze all the way through. It worked fine to just let it sit on the counter for a little while, till it began to thaw, and then continue with the activity.

Insert the spray top into the liquid water in the bottle, and then remove your cold tile from the freezer and spray the water onto it. It should freeze into ice on the tile almost instantly!

The glaze formed by our "freezing rain"

You can see how we could slide this ice off in a thin, solid sheet. So interesting!