| Mrs. Brinza was able to get some dry ice over the weekend (thank you science-connection-friend)! We decided to do some stuff with it to see if it would be worthy enough to make fog on a larger scale in our classroom for our fog machines. Students investigation ideas were to "use dry ice and water." So that's what we did! |
We did all kinds of things with the dry ice and water, including just putting it on the table to sublimate (change from a solid to a gas), along with putting it in water. We had lots of discussion around what the molecules of the dry ice, water, and air were doing alone and with respect to one another. There was lots of talk about collisions and what each molecule was doing to another molecule depending on how much kinetic energy it had. We also used BtB as an indicator for carbon dioxide (dry ice is solid CO2 in case you didn't know), so we were able to tell when it was in the air and in the water.
Lots of students wanted to heat the water, as they know that heating it gets it to move faster, and make more of an impact with the collisions. So we tried that, too, and boy, did we see a difference. While this was all great to witness, before we move forward with our designs we're going to have to really understanding how dry ice and water makes fog.
We know the water gets us the humidity part of fog. We know there are CCNs in the air. And we know that dry ice is cold, making the temperature difference we need to slow down the water enough to condense. But is there a way to use all stuff we figured out to make fog even thicker, spookier and longer-lasting than the demonstrations today?
Check back soon for our models to understand this process...
Lots of students wanted to heat the water, as they know that heating it gets it to move faster, and make more of an impact with the collisions. So we tried that, too, and boy, did we see a difference. While this was all great to witness, before we move forward with our designs we're going to have to really understanding how dry ice and water makes fog.
We know the water gets us the humidity part of fog. We know there are CCNs in the air. And we know that dry ice is cold, making the temperature difference we need to slow down the water enough to condense. But is there a way to use all stuff we figured out to make fog even thicker, spookier and longer-lasting than the demonstrations today?
Check back soon for our models to understand this process...