Make Your Own Snow
When we think of crystals we often think of beautiful snowflakes. In this activity we will learn what snow is made of and watch how we can make a form of snow. We will also discover how snow has different forms, known as polymorphs, just like chocolate (try our chocolate and Lego activity here).
Make Your Own Snow Crystals
Watch the Make your Own Snow video on the right. Subtitles are available by clicking on the icon.
Once you have watched the video, why not try the activity yourselves by downloading our recipe and instruction sheet?
Download the Instructions
The PDF below contains instructions including what is needed to complete the activity, step-by-step instructions, and a health and safety guide.
What are you seeing?
In this experiment, we add water to sodium polyacrylate to make a substance that looks like snow. Sodium polyacrylate is a polymer that can absorb more than 100 times its mass in water. Its ability to absorb water means you can find it in nappies as well as fake snow!
Sodium polyacrylate is made up of two parts, sodium and polyacrylate. Polyacrylate is a polymer and polymers are made from joining lots of smaller molecules together in a chain a bit like a smaller version of a chain of rubber bands that you might make a bracelet from.
In this experiment, our polymer chain is made up of a chemical called acrylic acid. In the dry powder, the positively charged sodium ions are tightly bound within these polyacrylate polymer chains. When water is added, the polyacrylate chains prefer to bind with the hydrogen atoms in the water instead, allowing sodium to move around and the polymer chains can start to unravel. Usually at this point the mixture forms a gel and starts to suck up water (which is why it can be found in nappies). However, in our fake snow we use a different form of sodium polyacrylate that has more links between the chains, and this time as we add water, the powder swells forming tighter, dryer flakes that look more like snow.
Keep Learning
If you have enjoyed your Crystal Adventure then you can keep learning with our Home Learning activities where you will find a battle card game alongside more experiments to explore.