I took a sandwich
bag and put it on
Abby’s hand and
then covered it
in shortening to
simulate the blubber
that arctic animals
have on them.
We started by watching the Magic School Bus
in the Arctic. Arnold discovers that his cocoa is
cold, he wants to know where all the hot went.
Ms. Frizzle takes the class all the way to the
Arctic. While they are there, the bus’s engine
freezes and the bus floats away with Ralphie
and Phoebe trapped inside! As the bus drifts
away,the kids start to lose their body heat! How
can Ms. Frizzle’s kids insulate their bodies to
keep the heat in? Can they rescue their class
mates before they become popsicles?
We pulled out our worksheets and got to work
on our experiment.
I took a sandwich bag and I put it on my
daughter Abby’s hand and then covered it in
shortening to simulate the blubber that arctic
animals have on them. We talked about what
blubber was and why it was important. I had
2 bowls of ice water I had Abby dip both her
hands in the bowls and see how long she could
leave each one there. She pulled the bare
hand out of the ice water in less than a minute,
but she was able to keep the hand covered in
shortening in the water much longer, in fact she
probably could have kept it in there all night and
never felt the cold, but she got bored and the
other kids wanted a go. They each took turns
with the blubber glove and were fascinated that
they couldn’t feel a thing.
We also filled a sandwich bag with cotton and
placed it on the kids hand, then I put an ice
pack on each of their hands (one protected
by cotton, one without). Not surprisingly they
tolerated the cold much better with the cotton
insulation. The last test we did was to place our
hand inside the cotton baggie and then stick it
in the water to see if it would protect from the
cold water as much as the blubber had. They
were very surprised that even though the cotton
kept them warm from the ice pack, when they
were submerged in water they could feel the
cold much faster than with the shortening. They
came to the conclusion that fur was good for
cold weather as long as you didn’t get wet.
Awesome experiment and so educational, my
kids know pretty much everything there is to
know about blubber.