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Includes statements from Development Matters (birth to age five) and the relevant ELGs in full, for the Ice rescue provocation
Includes statements from Development Matters (birth to age five) and the relevant ELGs in full, for the Ice rescue provocation
Play, Be, C Units provide enabling environments with teaching and support from adults. Reflecting on the characteristics of effective teaching and learning, children will have opportunity to learn and develop by:
- Playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’.
- Active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties and enjoy achievements.
- Creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.
Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework: accessed November 2024. Available under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Freezing, cold, solid, hard, melting, wet, dripping, smooth, shiny, white, crystals, see through, cloudy, faster, slower
Fill up the container to be frozen with water and put in your objects. If you are using a rubber glove, secure at the wrist using an elastic bag. Place the container in the freezer overnight.
When it is frozen, remove the ice from the container and put it in the middle of the tough spot or tray.
Tell the children that they are going to be glaciologists. You could use our glaciologist poster. Tell the children that they are going to be curious about the ice, and find a way to rescue the object from the ice without touching it. They will need to be observant and notice what happens when they try didn’t ways to rescue the object. They will need to be resilient as it could take a long time!
Leave pipettes, warm and cold water and salt for the children to use to rescue the objects. Challenge the children to rescue the objects without touching the ice with any part of their body or clothing.
Remember to refer to the children as glaciologists and praise them for using the attributes. You could say things like:
“You have been curious like a glaciologist to investigate the quickest way to rescue something from the ice.”
“Well done, you observed how quickly the water and the salt melted the ice.”
“You have been resilient like a glaciologist, as you didn’t give u, you kept on trying until you completed the ice rescue!”
We have put together some useful information about the science of glaciology to accompany this activity. Don’t worry, this is for your information only and to help you answer any questions children may have. We don’t expect you to explain this to the children in your setting!
The molecules in water are constantly moving. In a liquid, the molecules move more, and faster, than in a solid. As the liquid cools down the molecule movement slows down. When the water temperature reaches around 0°C, the molecules are closer together and weak bonds form between them. They form a solid that we call ice.
Ice melts when the movement of the water molecules is enough to break the weak bonds between them. As the ice heats up the molecules start to move faster. At around 0 °C the movement of the molecules can break the bonds and the molecules can move further apart. The ice melts and forms liquid water.
Warmer water contains more heat energy, causing the molecules to move faster and the bonds between molecules to be broken faster to form liquid water.
Salt lowers the freezing point of water. This is called “freezing point depression.” The salt makes it harder for the water molecules to bond together to form a solid. In water, salt will dissolve into separate sodium ions and chloride ions. More ions mean more ions getting in the way of the ice bonds.
During melting, the water molecules absorb heat energy. This heat is transferred from the water, air or object surrounding or touching the ice and is why an ice cube melts more quickly on the outside and retains its coldness and solidity longer at the centre.