As a follow up to The Snowman’s Coat Science investigations we decided to do another investigation to explore what happens to water when it is placed in a  freezer.

We found three penguins and checked that they were exactly the same size then we put them in containers that had exactly the same amount of water in them. Mrs Clyde then kindly placed the three containers of penguins in water in her big freezer.

We waited a couple of days and then we checked to find out what had happened. The water had turned to ice and we couldn’t see our penguins anymore.

In the classroom we decided together that we would place one penguin in ice on a tray near the sink, one block of ice was placed into some hot water and the third block of ice was placed on a tray outside in the playground.

Over the next two days we were Scientists and we investigated what was happening to the ice.

Results:

• The penguin in the block of ice that was placed in the hot water was quick to escape. We saw that the hot water very quickly melted the ice and turned it back to water.
• The next block of ice to melt was the ice block that was placed by the sink. We decided that the classroom was warm so that it why it melted before we went home.
• The last block of ice to melt was the one we had placed outside. Overnight it had remained as solid ice and it only melted after there was a very heavy shower of rain. We realised that it had been very cold outside and that is why it took this block of ice so long to melt.

This experiment helped us to understand that water turns to ice when it is very cold. We also learned that ice melts back to water very quickly if it is in a warm place and that it takes much longer to melt back to water if the ice is placed in a very,very  cold place.