Designs of Nature - Snow and More

Focus: In freezing temperatures, water may take many forms, each with its own design and special beauty.

Puppets (Needle Crystal, Plate Crystal, Column Crystal, Capped Column Crystal, Stellar Crystal)

Materials Checklist
Snow Melt (clear plastic cups, snow, waterproof markers)
Puppet Show (puppets, script)
Make a Flake (white paper squares, scissors, thread, Make a Flake diagram)
Flakes on Film (slide show, projector, screen, or photos and drawings of snowflakes)
Snowflake Fantasy (K-2) (Snowflake Fantasy script)
Icy Acts (3-6) (Icy Acts information cards and diagrams, role nametags (optional), optional props: ping-pong balls, cotton balls, snow shovels, plastic wrap, windshield scraper)
Flakes Up Close (black cloth or black paper scraps, tape, hand lenses)
Snow Snooping (Snow Snoopers cards, one for each small group, hand lenses)
Hidden Images (Hidden Images snowflake pictures)
Crystal Challenge (5/6 ELF) (Snow Crystal Classification Chart, sheet of snow crystal photographs, paper, pencils, glue sticks)

Supplemental Reference Materials (Slide show scripts: Grades K-2, Grades 3-6, Hidden Images, Snow Crystal Types, Snow Snooping card, Can You Find?, Precipitation Cycle diagrams, Snowflake Fantasy (shortened), 5/6 ELF Activity: Crystal Challenge, 5/6 ELF Supplement: Snow Classification Chart)

Additional Reading/Resources
Caltech snow crystal site
The Snowflake: Winter's Secret Beauty, by Patricia Rasmussen (photographer) and Kenneth George Libbrecht, Voyageur Press, 2003.
Snow Crystals, by W.A. Bentley and W.J. Humpreys, Dover Publications, 1962.
The Snowflake Man: A Biography of Wilson A. Bentley, by Duncan Blanchard, McDonald and Woodward Publishers, 1998. The University of Buffalo has a wonderful collection of images of W.A. Bentley's snowflakes, and the story of his life. Go to Buffalo Museum of Science.
ELF Corner: A Flurry of Flakes (pdf file)

ELF Notes - Template for newsletter on Snow and More
*Word document * pdf file

Teaching Suggestions

Snow Melt
Each small group can share a cup of snow, and the kids could put several marks on, with initials so they don't all have to agree on one guess. Then they could see who was closest. Discussion should include noting that some snow is fluffy, some is heavy, and thus they will have different water contents. Older students could select different types of snow and compare the range of water content. Compare melting time of an ice cube with that of snow.

For older children, have two identical clear quart jars. Mark both jars at ¾ level. Fill one jar ¾ full of water. Fill the other jar ¾ full with snow. Leave the jars in a warm place while doing other activities. How much water resulted from the melted snow? Calculate the volume of water in the “water” jar. Next, calculate the volume of water and the volume of air in the snow jar.

If you are in an urban environment, in a third and separate cup add an equal volume of compacted snow from a snow bank or trampled area. Have the children estimate the water level in that cup. What accounts for the difference? (More of the crystals are broken off, resulting in less air trapped between the flakes of the compacted snow.) The dense snow consists of more water than light fluffy snow.
Puppet Show

The newest version of the puppet show reads:
""Capped Column: It's me all right, only better!"
"Plate: You've grown a plate crystal on each end!"
"Capped Column: Yeah. I was feeling kind of plain, and look at me now! I'm not just a column crystal. I'm a capped column. So long ... ""
This helps make it clear that a Capped Column GROWS from a Column rather than sounding like the plate crystals are just stuck on.

Flakes Up Close
You can do this even if it isn't snowing. If it has snowed recently, the flakes on top of the snow pack will still have a lot of detail. If you dig a hole, you can see how the individual flake changes as it ages and is found deeper in the snow pack.

The objective for this activity is to look closely at the designs within snowflakes and think about what creates these different designs within each flake.

Snow Snooping
In a city, add a search item: A snow bank. Check the location – on dirt or lawn or on blacktop? Is the snow melting? Where will the snow melt faster? Why? Have the kids think about those huge shopping mall snow banks that don't melt for weeks after other ground snow has melted. Discuss why. Huge piles of dumped snow become like manmade glaciers, the layers of snow compacting down as the crystal structure changes. More like ice than snow, huge snow banks are self-insulating. They melt more slowly and contain more water than an equal size pile of fluffy snow. Refer back to the original experiment of melting snow in a cup where the children could see the greater water content of compacted snow.

Hidden Images
The objective for this activity is to look closely at the designs within snowflakes and think about what creates these different designs within each flake.

One group had children make their own images to hide on the snowflakes they'd made.

Young students can color in the images they find.

Make A Flake
You can order 5.5" squares of patty paper from White River Paper Company 1-800-639-7226. This is strong yet thin paper that cuts nicely.

Pinking shears and paper punches help make the flakes pretty and lacy.

Many people choose to use round coffee filters as flake paper. You can iron the filters ahead of time (carefully!) to flatten them out.

A 60 degree triangle cardboard template to fold around makes this easier.

Icy Acts
Props for the skits should include large thermometers and rain drops on sticks along with the other props listed in the materials section.

Extensions
Play "Freeze tag" where person frozen can be freed if they name something warm. OR, when the IT person tags another person, they link arms and tag another until there's a blizzard.

One group made edible snowflakes by folding flour tortillas and cutting them out. Add powdered sugar.

Learning Goals Concepts/Ideas

• Fallen snow is a collection of crystals stacked with air spaces between.
• Snowflakes consist of one or more tiny and intricate snow crystals that have joined together in their descent to earth.
• Snow crystals are part of the group of crystals that are six-sided (hexagonal) vertical or horizontal prisms.
• Various types of frozen precipitation, snow, freezing rain, hail and sleet are formed according to air and ground temperature, and wind conditions.
• Examining falling snowflakes with a hand lens will reveal a variety of intricate designs.

Vocabulary: Snowflake, Snow Crystal, Hexagon, Column, Plate, Needle, Stellar Crystal, Capped Column, Sleet, Hail, Freezing Rain

Skills

• Predicting and investigating how much of the volume of snow is occupied by air.
• Active listening to learn about and compare the designs of five different kinds of snow crystals.
• Making a model using folded and cut paper of the six-sided structure of snowflakes.
• Investigating and observing outdoors the different types of snow
• Demonstrating through role-playing the processes that form different types of frozen precipitation.

Grade Expectations:
Grades PK-K (S48) Snow is made of frozen water. As water freezes in cold air, snowflakes form in different shapes.

Grades 1-2 (S48) Water freezes in cold air to form ice crystals in a variety of shapes.

Grades 3-4 (S48) Air temperature, ground temperature and wind determine the form of freezing precipitation. Snowflakes consist of snow crystals. Snow crystals are six-sided.

Grades 5-6 (S48) Much of the volume of snow is occupied by air. Snow crystals are part of the group of six-sided/hexagonal crystals. They may be classified by form.

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