Melting Ice Experiment

Dancing Queen wanted to do her Science Fair project on melting ice. She was curious about what would make ice melt faster. This is a simple science experiment to do with items you likely already have in your kitchen.

Materials needed for this simple science experiment:

• small Dixie cups
• water
• scissors
• 6 compartment muffin tin
• salt
• sugar

Before beginning the experiment, have students talk about what they expect the results to be. Ask them what variable will melt the ice fastest.

Fill 6 small Dixie cups with water. Freeze overnight. Cut the frozen water out of the cups (adult help may be required for this step). Place one in each of the compartments in the muffin tin. Pour hot water on one, cold water on another, steam on another, salt on another, and sugar on another. Leave one alone so that it can act as the control.

Adult supervision is important, particularly with the steam and hot water.

Students can document the progress through taking pictures or journalling observations at one minute, five minutes, half an hour, and one hour after adding the variables.

Here is a picture before we added anything to the ice:

This is immediately after adding the variables to the ice:

This is after five minutes:

This is after half an hour:

This is after one hour:

As you can see, the control did melt slower than any of the others. Hot water melted the ice the fastest.

Dixie CupsWilton 6 Cup Regular Muffin PanMorton Morton Salt

Dancing Queen then dictated to me what she had observed during the experiment and we included that as well as a picture she drew of the process and the photographs on her display board for the Science Fair.

Here are some other simple science experiments using common household items that you may enjoy doing at home or in the classroom:

How Fold Mountains are Made10 Jello Science Experiments