Nadia and I are working on a “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” unit study from Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler. She had a test to see how blubber keeps animals warm while they live in the Antarctic.
It’s a super easy experiment and Nadia loved it. First take about a cup of shortening and put it in a Ziploc baggie. Place the child’s hand in the bag and mold the shortening around the entire hand.
Then fill a bowl with ice water and place both the bagged shortening hand and the plain hand in the bowl and see which one feels protected from the cold.
She said she could tell right away that the “blubber” hand was not instantly freezing like her other hand.