Heronswood scientists took part in Rivers’ Ice, Ice Baby afternoon and enjoyed working scientifically on an icy November day. Each year group chose an investigation to undertake which involved ice, for example, discovering why we use salt to ice our roads and finding out which material could keep ice frozen for the longest amount of time.

During the afternoon the following various activities took place:

Pre-school children rescued penguins from the ice by experimenting with warm water and pipettes, using their hands as warmth or submerging the ice cubes in water to melt the ice. They also enjoyed painting with frozen paint and creating lava lamps with oil and water.

Year 3 learned that salt melts ice. They used this knowledge to make fishing rods from ice and string. It was great fun and lots of mess was made!

Year 4 investigated ways to make ice melt more quickly and slowly using various materials as insulators.

Year 6 investigated how long it takes for different ice-creams to melt.

During the afternoon, children across school identified misconceptions, predicted, performed tests, recorded results in a variety of ways, discussed what they found out and evaluated their experiments.

Mrs Botfield, Science Lead at Heronswood, was extremely pleased. “The Ice, Ice Baby afternoon was a huge success, with lots of our young scientists working scientifically to find the answers to questions and presenting their findings.” 

Everyone at Heronswood is looking forward to the next Rivers science afternoon in March.