The physics of snowflakes is an extremely interesting topic to explore. Students can look at how physics concepts can be applied to the study of snowflakes. They will be surprised at how many interesting things they can discover about the little snowflake.
The first snowflakes physics science fair project is to examine the water volume in snowflakes. This project will require to take samples of snow from various locations. They will then need to determine how much water volume the average square inch of snow contains.
Next the student will need to determine how much water volume is contained in a snow fall of one inch over the area of one square mile. The student will need to utilize humidity, temperature and snowfall measurements offered by their local weather station. Students can also take their own readings and measurements in the field. To expand upon this project student can take measurements and determine if the water volume in snow increases or decreases over the winter season.
The second project will examine the falling speed of snowflakes. This project seems simple at first, but external factors are going to impact how fast snow is going to fall in each area. For example, wind speed and direction are going to be major influences on terminal snowfall speed.
To complete this project students will need to first determine the control falling speed of snow based on factors related to a vacuum environment with no wind speed. This is the baseline data for the project. Next students will need to determine how wind speed and direction impact the rate of fall of a snowflake.
The third project is going to look at the force that a single snowflake produces as it falls to the earth and the force that a snowball can produce when it is dropped from a height of 10 feet. To complete this project students will first need to determine the mass of an average snowflake. This will be used to determine its force when dropped from a height of 10 feet, 100 feet, and 10,000 feet.
The second part of the experiment will be to determine the force produced by a snowball that has a diameter of three inches. Students will first need to determine the mass of the snowball and then they will need to calculate the force produced by the snowball when it is dropped from a height of 10 feet, 100 feet and 10,000 feet. Students can also determine the combined force produced by the snow falling on their school yard.
In addition to studying the physics of snowflakes students can also develop chemistry science fair projects about them as well. For example, students can look at how the chemical makeup of the water vapor impacts the design of the snowflake, they can examine how temperature impacts the speed at which snowflakes develop and they can also examine if other vapors can also create snowflakes. Students just need to tap into their imaginations to find new and interesting ways to approach the subject of snowflake science.
