How Heavy is Snow?
How Heavy is Snow?
How heavy is snow? What’s heavier snow or water?
To find out, we decided to do an experiment.
Materials needed:
Measuring cup
Measuring spoons
Paper and pencil
Kitchen scale (or digital bathroom scale)
Snow
Water
To begin, I drew up a chart, listing all the combinations we would try, and included a column to write the weight.
The boys began by hypothesizing which they thought would be the heaviest. They both guessed WATER (but weren’t sure why).
We weighed several types of snow and water using the kitchen scale (a bathroom scale may work just as well).
1. Snow. Not packed. Just lightly filling the measuring cup
2. Water
3. Half water and half snow – to form slush
4. Tightly packed snow
The boys began by hypothesizing which they thought would be the heaviest. They both guessed WATER (but weren’t sure why).
We weighed several types of snow and water using the kitchen scale (a bathroom scale may work just as well).
1. Snow. Not packed. Just lightly filling the measuring cup
2. Water
3. Half water and half snow – to form slush
4. Tightly packed snow
We discovered, as hypothesized, that water was the heaviest.
The Science Behind it All
This has a lot to do with the air. There is more air in the lightly packed snow than there is in the water. Air weighs less than water.
You can also teach your kids about density by using this website
