Growing snowflakes solves many problems associated with snowflake science fair projects that rely on natural snowflakes. They allow students to control all of the factors that impact snowflake development including temperature, humidity and air pressure. This enables students to isolate one variable to test.
The hypothesis for the growing snowflakes science fair project is that the amount of humidity in the air impacts the growth rate of a snowflake. The dependent variable in this experiment is the growth rate of the snowflake and the independent variable is the amount of humidity in the water vapor being frozen. The growth rate of the snowflake will be determined by the size of the snowflake crystal at the end of a 30 second freezing time.
It is important to remember that in chemistry science fair projects like this one that contamination is always a concern. This means that students will want to set up their experiment in sterile conditions. This means making sure the freezing chamber is clean and free of ice crystals.
The next step is to set up the control experiment. This experiment will be used to create a set of baseline data points. The control factors for this experiment will be a temperature of 14 degrees F and a relative humidity rate of 30 percent. The experiment will need to be run and data collected.
The test experiment is going to manipulate the relative humidity rate without changing the temperature. The student will want to examine both humidity rates that are higher and lower than the control test. For example, the student can collect data at a 25 percent humidity rate, at a 35 percent humidity rate and at a 100 percent humidity rate.
The data that is collected will fall into two categories. The first category will relate to the independent variable, or the humidity rate that was used. The second set of data will relate to the size of the snowflake after the 30 second freezing time.
The analysis of the data collected will start by finding an average crystal size for each relative humidity rate. This is accomplished by adding together all of the sizes of the snowflakes for each relative humidity rate and dividing that result by the number of samples taken. The next step will be to order the average sizes based on their relative humidity rates. This will allow the student to see if the numbers go up or down. Students may also observe that there is no consistent pattern. If this occurs then it can indicate that humidity does not impact crystal growth rates.
Wrapping up this science fair project will start with the report. The report for the growing snowflakes science fair project will need to summarize each step in the scientific method. Students will be able to get most of the information that they need for their report from their notes and data that was collected.
