Have you ever wondered what it is about throwing salt on ice that makes it melt?
And just why does it melt?
Where does the heat come from to melt the water?
Why does it freeze again on the road at night?
These questions and many more about freezing and thawing were looked at this year in 5th grade science. We started off talking about how energy flows in any system. We studied the air and weather and found that things always flow from areas of higher concentration to areas of lower concentration. This automatic transfer of energy and material will always work to balance the amount of energy and material. This is a natural law. From this we deduced that heat energy will always flow from areas of higher temperature to areas of lower temperature. Knowing this simple rule, we looked at a very tasty application of it. By using the Laws of Thermodynamics, and simple house hold items, we made ice cream in class as our end of year lab.
