🧊 Does crushed ice melt faster than a whole cube?

My hypothesis

If I change how broken up the ice is, then how long the ice takes to melt will ______, because ______.

🔊 You fill in the blanks. Think about how much of the ice touches the air, and where warmth can get in. A guess is a good because: the test finds out.

Change, measure, keep the same

Scientists call the thing you change the independent variable and the thing you measure the dependent variable. The things you keep the same are the controls: if one of them changed too, you wouldn't know which change made the difference. Try each of the 3 levels 3 times.

What you need

• 🧊 Ice cubes, all from the same tray: 9 cubes
• 🍽️ Small plates or saucers, all the same: 9
• 🛍️ Plastic bags: 1, for crushing
• 🥄 A spoon
• ⏱️ A stopwatch or a kitchen timer
• 🧽 A sponge or cloth, for wiping up

Steps

1. Grown-up: A grown-up breaks three ice cubes, each into four pieces.🔊
2. Grown-up: A grown-up taps three more cubes into tiny bits in a plastic bag, with the back of a spoon.🔊
3. Set out nine plates in three rows of three, in a room with no sun on the table.🔊
4. Put a whole cube on each plate in row one, and four pieces on each plate in row two.🔊
5. Share the crushed ice between the three plates in row three.🔊
6. Start the timer when the last plate is ready.🔊
7. Look at the plates every five minutes, and read the timer when a plate has no ice left.🔊
8. Write the minutes for each plate in your table. If ice is left at 90 minutes, write 90.🔊
9. Wipe up the water with a sponge, then draw a bar graph with one bar for each shape of ice.🔊

2 steps are a grown-up's, marked above. Write each number down straight away, in the table below, so nothing is lost.

Your results table

From 4th grade, add the tries for each level and divide by how many there were: that's the mean, and it goes in the last column. Then draw a bar graph, one bar for each thing you tried.

Why it works

🔊 Ice melts when warmth from the air and the plate flows into it. Crushed ice has far more of its surface open to the air than one whole cube, so warmth gets in from every side at once. That is why smaller pieces usually melt faster.

Going further (7th and up): Change a second thing: put each shape on a plate and in a foam cup, and graph the melting times side by side.

Board layout

This project at your grade

From 4th grade up, the table gets a mean column. See every project for 1st grade, or print a blank results table.

What a judge will ask

• What did you change, and what did you measure? I changed how broken up the ice is and measured how long the ice takes to melt, in minutes.
• What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? I kept the same amount of ice on every plate, one cube's worth and the same kind of plate the same, so the only difference was how broken up the ice is.
• How many times did you test it? 3 times at each of my 3 levels.
• If you did it again, what would you change or test next? I'd put each shape on a plate and in a foam cup, and graph the melting times side by side.

Make it yours

Keep this project on this device and Peabody counts down to your fair day, with a plan for each day. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Try next

• 💧 Does ice melt faster in water or in air?2nd–6th grade · 1 day of testing · free🧪 Water, ice and mixing · 🧂 Kitchen things
• 🧊 Which cup keeps an ice cube from melting longest?1st–7th grade · 1 day of testing · about $1🧪 Water, ice and mixing · 🧂 Kitchen things