Dry Ice Experiments

What a wonderful science day we had today!  I brought 5 lbs. of dry ice pellets into my classroom.  I told the kids we were going to do “science magic” just like they see the magicians do or like the ghost smoke they see on their Scooby-Doo movies.  I explained what dry ice was (carbon dioxide gas)  and that they couldn’t touch it because of how cold it was.  I asked if they thought it would melt like regular ice from the freezer. Of course they thought it would melt like regular ice so I put some ice cubes in one bowl as a control and dry ice in another. When the ice cubes melted into water and the dry ice just disappeared they could understand that the dry ice was the element or gas carbon dioxide.  The kids understand about carbon dioxide being a gas that we breathe out and oxygen is a gas we breathe in.  They also understand that trees utilize carbon dioxide and give us the oxygen we need.  We studied that in the fall when we were learning about how plants and trees are important for us to live.

  Then I said I would do magic like on TV and make smoke.  I put the dry ice into a bowl of water and the smoke just flowed out—such excitement!—it was just like a magic show! It helped them not to be afraid of the ghost movies when they realized the smoke was just a gas.

 For my next magic show I put some soap and again magic!  The bubbles just flowed and flowed—the interesting part was how they didn’t flow from one spot but kept moving around the bowl.  The more dry ice you put in the higher the bubbles.

   In my next trick I blew up a balloon.  I asked what they thought would happen if I put some dry ice in a bottle and a balloon over it—shoulders shrugged.  Mouths opened when the balloon started to expand. Then I took a  balloon and put dry ice into it.  My control balloon, which was the one we blew up with the dry ice in the bottle. To the kids amazement the balloon with the dry ice continued to grow even though it was knotted, until it exploded.  When I asked why—one kindergartener figured the gas from the dry ice was making it expand until it popped.

 Another magic experiment we did was to put a metal spoon onto the dry ice package and the spoon made music that sounded like a phone ringing.  I then put 3 other spoons of different sizes and weights on the ice and each had a different sound.  My next experiment was to let them feel the coldness of the bowls and spoons (after they had been on the ice) and on a balloon that had some dry ice pellets inside.

 My final experiment was to show how the water bowl we had put the soap with the water and dry ice  turned into ice sculptures. The bottle we put just the water and dry ice in had also turned into sculptures.  We tried to pick up the bottle and the bowl from the table and found it had gotten so cold it froze to the tables.  No one could pick it up.  We had a contest to see which parent that came to pick up their child could pick up the bowl or bottle.  During and after all of our experiments I would ask the why and how all this happened. I also let them touch the bubbles and the ice sculptures to feel how very cold they were.  My control bowls with water ice were touched to see which was colder.  We talked about the different ways and places dry ice was used and compared it to the uses of water ice.  I then got a video of Scooby-do that had been scary for the kids—now when the ghost smoke and bubble cauldron parts of the video came on the kids yelled—that’s not scary its dry ice! After we finished I had each child write one fact they had learned about dry ice.

The hands on experiences with dry ice let the children understand more about elements, and gases while having such fun.  They couldn’t wait to tell the parents when they were picked up.  These fun experiences  of learning will stay with the children as opposed to just reading about dry ice, carbon dioxide, and other gases and what they do or their importance to us. Experiences with fun experiments also make science interesting and something to look forward to learning about.

                                                                  Miss Gail