Snow Day Science

In lieu of the winter spirit, we visited both West Valley and Cambrian Branch Libraries in December to bring Snow Day Science, a STEAM Lab that combined both scientific fun and artistic creativity. This month’s lab sought to encourage aesthetic imagination through experiments fueled by science, drawing inspiration from the weather at the time.

Participants started by designing colorful paper snowflakes, before moving on to create a crystallized landscape with– you guessed it, salt and watercolor paints! With the snowflakes, our visitors first cut out their desired shape, before dipping the center of their snowflake into watercolor, allowing capillary action and osmosis to fill their snowflakes with winter-themed colors. Then, by sprinkling salt across paper and painting with watercolors over it, our participants added an icy touch to their final artworks.

At the end of the lab, we finished with a final challenge that encouraged participants to catch as many snowball pom-poms in a cup as possible– but here’s the twist: they had to construct catapults with nothing but popsicle sticks and rubber bands first as snowball launchers, combining fun with physics! Overall, our group really enjoyed watching our participants’ artistic creativity thrive through STEAM-powered art experiments, and we look forward to inspiring more love for art and science in our next month’s workshops!