Year 4’s Science topic is Materials. We know that materials can be in three different states – solids, liquids and gases. We are currently learning about changes of state, in particular freezing and melting. We carried out an investigation to see if certain things speed up the process of melting an ice cube. We used heat from our hands, salt, sugar and water. To keep the investigation fair, we used similar sized ice cubes and the same amount of salt and sugar. Lots of us thought that maybe the salt would speed the melting process up, based on the fact that salt is sometimes spread on the roads when it is icy. Others thought maybe the heat from our hands would melt the ice fastest. We were unsure how sugar might affect the ice (we can confirm that unfortunately, it did not turn into a slush puppie!). What do you think might happen?
Our results were quite surprising. The ice in the water melted fastest and the ice held in our hands melted slowest. Can you work out why this might have happened?
We had fun carrying out this investigation. Year 4 are great scientists!
