We were inspired by the Artful Parent in doing this fun science experiment….watching how salt melts ice.
Supplies:
- Milk carton
- Water
- Kosher salt
- Food coloring
- Baking pan or tray
Directions:
First fill a milk carton with water and freeze till it’s solid. When you are ready to do the activity with the kids, remove ice block from the carton and place it into a baking pan.
Have the children sprinkle salt on top of the block. We did this activity twice…first we used regular table salt and Kosher salt together. (In the end, I decided that Kosher salt worked the best).
Have the kids add drops of food coloring onto the salt.
You can see the colors starting to seep inside the block of ice.
On the right side of this block of ice is where my daughter poured a cup full of table salt. It didn’t really melt the ice as nice as the kosher salt.
The kids will ooh and aah as the the salt melts crevasses into the ice. (For this ice block we only used kosher salt).
We live in a place where it doesn’t snow, however if you do live where it snows, this is a great activity to teach the kids how they spread salt on the roads to melt the snow/ice. Salt basically lowers the freezing/melting point of water.
It’s so pretty to watch…
My daughter was having fun touching the cold ice. She’s laughing because I caught her sticking her fingers into her mouth so she could taste the salt. 😉
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