Experiments with KVRR Meteorologist Scott Sincoff: Melting the Icy Hand

Fun and Easy Science Experiments

What you need for the experiment:

• Cup of water
• Driveway or rock salt
• Icy hand (made of ice in a latex glove)
• Plastic spoons
• Tray

How to do the experiment:

This week, we’re going to melt an icy hand. The first thing you do is put a little bit of water over the icy hand to unstick the latex glove to the ice and rip. Once you get the glove off of the icy hand, sprinkle some rock or driveway salt onto the hand and move it around with a couple of plastic spoons. Move some of the salty water onto the icy hand to help speed up the melting process using the spoons.

Salt melts ice quickly because the combination causes freezing point depression which means that it lowers the freezing point, and consequently, the melting point of water.

To find out how to create the icy hand, check out the experiment here.