April Snow

Winter came in with snow, and it was so depressing! Linus and I had cabin fever. I wanted warm spring walks, and he just wanted more time outdoors. Sipping my cup of coffee, I looked for my student. He was filling a bowl with snow to eat for breakfast.

We had had conversations about eating snow; even new-fallen snow is dirty. However, teenaged boys can be confident in their own knowledge and wisdom; they learn better from inquiry and experience than by lecture or reading. Suddenly, I became inspired.

I announced that today we were going to do a science experiment with snow, starting with Linus filling a quart jar with snow, which we would let melt. He decided to melt even more, in the funnel on top.

He checked the melt progress constantly. Although the progress was agonizingly slow, I was glad for the diversion. Normally, we’d have been struggling more over factoring those algebra equations. Now he was working a little harder to finish each problem so he could check again the progress of the melting snow.

Finally, the snow had all melted. Can you believe how little water resulted from melting all that snow?

It was time for the big reveal. I asked Linus to pour the water through a coffee filter to see what else was in the snow, besides the water.

We discussed what we would find when the filtering was done. What do you think we found? Well, the filter revealed that the snow is not a clean as “a new fallen snow”.

Zooming in and enlarging so you can see.

Linus was impressed, but still considered this a small amount of dirt in a large amount of snow. He still enjoys eating some fresh snow now and then, but he no longer thinks snow is as clean as it looks.

Diana Malament homeschooled three children over a span of 27 years. She homeschooled with financial limitations, and when times were less difficult. She has homeschooled through many good times and many challenging times. Diana hopes to encourage you on your homeschool journey.