Science Sunday: Blubber Gloves

One of our science experiments this week was
related to our Winter Olympics studies...

Since the WINTER Olympics involves staying warm
in cold climates...

...we read
"The Magic School Bus in the Arctic:
A Book About Heat"
by
Joanna Cole

Then, it was time to investigate using
"Blubber Gloves!"

To do this fairly simple
(but pretty messy)
experiment,
you will need the following:

A Big Bowl of Ice Water
Vegetable Shortening
A Spatula
(or Some Other Kind of Utensil to Spread the Shortening)
Water, Soap, and Paper Towels for Clean Up!

The kiddos first put a hand in the ice water
to see how quickly their hands felt cold...

(which was pretty quick!)

Then, we put on some
"Blubber Gloves"...

I took one of their hands and COATED it with
Vegetable Shortening...
(aka "Blubber")

Jungle Girl bravely volunteered to go first,
so after she had her "glove" on,
she stuck her hand back in the ice water...

And to her amazement,
she could not feel the icy water AT ALL!

Baby Girl and Little Wild Man then got in
on the action...

In the book, the kiddos heard about how
the blubber on a Walrus enables it
to swim in Arctic waters...

This experiment proved it to them!

When it was all said and done,
the hardest part of the experiment is
"taking off the glove!"

(Helpful Hint: Wiping most of the shortening off
with a paper towel before washing the hand
seemed to work the best for clean up...)

Now, take off your blubber gloves and head on over to
Science Sunday and see what other fun experiments people have been up to!