Swimming and sinking, what pre-industrial means, and being a flexpert
I have had these two words on my mind over the last couple of days: “flexpert” and “pre-industrial”. Some thoughts about them here…
Category: kitchen oceanography
Throwback to the pandemic and teaching from home: “An ocean in a bucket”
I had completely forgotten about a video that Kjersti and I produced in 2021 to prepare her students for rotating tank experiments by addressing a common misconception before they ever…
#KitchenOceanography
/ˈkɪtʃɪn ˌəʊʃəˈnɒɡrəfi/ noun Experimenting with ocean physics using only household items Observing oceanographic processes in, or during the preparation of, food and drinks DIYnamics: Rotating tank experiments based on LEGO…
New SERC “Teach the Earth” Activity on “Ocean Currents and Overflows”
One day in the office at the Geophysical Institute in Bergen last Friday, and for the first time in a long time I am writing a little bit of oceanography…
Finally published yesterday: “Student guides: supporting learning from laboratory experiments through across-course collaboration” by Daae et al. (2023)
A project near and dear to my heart is using the DIYnamics rotating tank experiments in across-course collaborations. “Older” students, who did experiments the previous year, are trained to then…
24 days of #KitchenOceanography — now available as a book!
For all of you who know and love my “24 days of #KitchenOceanography” series (and for those who need to quickly look up what that was about and then fall…
A simple way to visualize how hydrostatic pressure increases with depth
I did this demo for my freediving club Active Divers (and if you aren’t following us on Insta yet, that’s what I am taking all these pretty pictures for!): 1.5l PET…
Denmark Strait overflow in a tank experiment
Since our Denmark Strait tank experiment from 2013 (see here in a post from 2014!) is still the one I refer to when I want to point to pictures of…
A #KitchenOceanography escape game for freedivers!
For the Christmas party of my freediving club, Active Divers, I made a freediving-themed #KitchenOceanography “escape game” (of sorts). If you are interested to use it for your own purposes,…
Using coffee in a talk on kitchen oceanography
I have been a bit quiet on here recently, because I had so many exciting projects going on that I did not manage to document them in real time (well,…
Molecular diffusion at different temperatures (involving tea bags and some convection)
I thought I had posted the picture below some time in winter already, but when I recently searched for it, I couldn’t find it. So either I didn’t post it,…
When you post pictures of your coffee on the Internet and end up in an oceanography textbook
When you post pictures of your* coffee on social media, the coolest things can happen! Yesterday I got a copy of this Chinese oceanography textbook for pupils in the mail.…
Can your favouite beverage tell you what your reseach as an ocean scientist should be on?
A “fortune teller” for #WorldOceanDay! What would you work on if you were an ocean scientist? And if you are an ocean scientist — are you doing the work you…
Coffee in #KitchenOceanography
For some reason my workflow regarding all things #KitchenOceanography and #WaveWatching changed at the beginning of this year. I started editing frames on the pictures I’m posting on Instagram, and,…
About #KitchenOceanography
At the end of last year, I did a poll on Twitter, asking what people would like to see more of in 2021: Kitchen oceanography, wave watching, teaching & scicomm…
Using #WaveWatching and #KitchenOceanography to prepare students for a one-day research cruise
When students have only one day at sea, it’s important to prepare them well for what will happen there so they get the chance to make the most of the…
Published in Oceanography: How to Teach Motivating and Hands-On Laboratory and Field Courses in a Virtual Setting
One of the few “behind the scenes” shots of me taking #WaveWatching pictures! See the super awesome current right at my feet? :-D⠀ ⠀ Similar to kitchen oceanography, I believe…
Treibholz podcast, my final episode in 2020
Oh no, it’s already my last Treibholz podcast episode this year! We are looking at ice cubes frozen from fresh and salt water, and are having a lot of fun,…
My iEarth “Christmas Lecture” on #KitchenOceanography
I gave a talk withing iEarth’s seminar series to introduce myself to the network last week. And since it was the last lecture before the Christmas break, I tried to turn it…
Diffusive layering — a super easy experiment!
Day 17 of my 24 days of #KitchenOceanography is about double-diffusive layering, and the post is using “go have a nice latte” as instructions. However, in times of Covid-19 (and…
Treibholz podcast, my third episode in 2020
Another episode of the Treibholz podcast (in german) with Ronja, Maxie and myself! We are doing Elin’s favourite experiment (ok, mine too), looking at ice cubes melting in fresh water…
Treibholz podcast, my second episode in 2020
On today’s Treibholz podcast (in german), Maxie, Ronja and I are playing with #KitchenOceanography again: this time double-diffusive mixing, specifically salt fingering. We had a lot of fun and discovered…
![[annotated photo] Photo of water flowing over a weir, annotated with arrows showing particle velocities](https://mirjamglessmer.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/FotG-300x168.jpg)
Testing the new particle tracking app “Flow on the Go”
The new particle tracking app “Flow on the Go” became available for testing on iOS yesterday. And it is SO AWESOME!!! The idea is that particle that are advected in…
Treibholz Podcast, my first episode in 2020
Check out today’s episode of Treibholz Podcast, where Maxie, Ronja and I talk about the oceanic overturning circulation and #KitchenOceanography (in german), while each of us is doing a similar…
Artikel “Praxisnähe dank digitaler Versuchsküche” von P. Mertsching über remote #KitchenOceanography
Im “eMagazin für aktuelle Themen der Hochschuldidaktik” der Uni Kiel ist der Artikel “Praxisnähe dank digitaler Versuchsküche” von Phil Mertsching über Torge’s und mein Projekt “Dry Theory 2 Juicy Reality”, insbesondere…
Rheoscopic fluid
I just wanted to quickly clean my tank… But then it was too pretty, so I guess the rheoscopic (“current showing”) fluid gets to stay a little longer. What an…
#KitchenOceanography as #FieldWorkFix
This is the longer version of the (A4!) poster that I am presenting on behalf of myself, Kjersti Daae, Elin Darelius, Joke Lübbecke and Torge Martin at the #FieldWorkFix conference next…
Alles andere als trockene Theorie (Repost)
Unser “DryTheory2JuicyReality” Projekt wurde durch den PerLe-Fonds für Lehrinnovation gefördert. Hier ist ein Repost eines Beitrages, den ich für den Blog “Einfach gute Lehre” geschrieben habe. „Meeresströmungen im Wassertank“: Lehre, die Wissenschaft…
A scicomm comic on Rossby waves and hands-on teaching
Last year in pre-social distancing times, Torge and I brought hands-on rotating tank experiments into his “atmosphere and ocean dynamics” class. The “dry theory to juicy reality” project was a…
Tilting frontal surface under rotation / cylinder collapse
Torge and I are planning to run the “tilting of a frontal surface under rotation / cylinder collapse” experiment as “remote kitchen oceanography” in his class on Thursday, so I’ve…
Rotating vs non-rotating turbulence
Last Thursday, Torge & I invited his “atmosphere & ocean dynamics class” to a virtual excursion into my kitchen — to do some cool experiments. As you know, I have…
A common misconception in rotating tank experiments, and one way of maybe not reinforcing it
A very common misconception when looking at atmosphere & ocean dynamics in a rotating tank is that the center of the tank represents one of the poles and the edge…
Solid body rotation
Several of my friends were planning on teaching with DIYnamics rotating tables right now. Unfortunately, that’s currently impossible. Fortunately, though, I have one at home and enjoy playing with it enough…
Behind the scenes of the #KitchenOceanography article published in SCIENCE NOTES Magazin
Recently I had the privilege to work with photographer David Carrenon Hansen on pictures for an article that was published in SCIENCE NOTES Magazin today. This issue of the mono…
Thermal forcing vs rotation tank experiments in more detail than you ever wanted to know
This is the long version of the two full “low latitude, laminar, tropical Hadley circulation” and “baroclinic instability, eddying, extra-tropical circulation” experiments. A much shorter version (that also includes the…
Thermal forcing vs rotation
The first experiment we ever ran with our DIYnamics rotating tank was using a cold beer bottle in the center of a rotating tank full or lukewarm water. This experiment is…
Ekman layers in my kitchen
Several of my friends were planning on teaching with DIYnamics rotating tables right now. Unfortunately, that’s currently impossible. Fortunately, though, I have one at home and enjoy playing with it enough…
Rossby-#WaveWatchingWednesday
Several of my friends were planning on teaching with DIYnamics rotating tables right now. Unfortunately, that’s currently impossible. Fortunately, though, I have one at home and enjoy playing with it enough…
Brine rejection and overturning, but not the way you think! Guest post by Robert Dellinger
It’s #KitchenOceanography season! For example in Prof. Tessa M Hill‘s class at UC Davis. Last week, her student Robert Dellinger posted a video of an overturning circulation on Twitter that got me…
Kitchen Oceanography — oceanography experiments in your own kitchen!
The second coolest thing about #KitchenOceanography is, besides obviously the oceanography as the coolest part, that it can all be done at home, in your own kitchen (hence the name). Today,…
On melting ice cubes and molecular diffusion of heat
First of all, let me say how much I love having chats like the one Elin and I had over the weekend (which you only see the very beginning of…
Temperature dependency of molecular diffusion, and convection taking over
I saw the idea for this experiment on Instagram (Max is presenting it for @glaeserneslabor) and had to try it, too! The idea is to put drops of dye into…
Destroying the diffusive layers in a latte in order to observe the insulating properties of milk foam
Have you ever noticed how, if you stir your latte*, when you pull out the spoon it’s piping hot, yet there is no steam rising from the latte itself? That’s…
What’s #kitchenoceanography all about?
Preparing my talk at the Science in Public conference in Manchester… A definition of kitchen oceanography /ˈkɪtʃɪn ˌəʊʃəˈnɒɡrəfi/ noun Kitchen oceanography is where my blog “Adventures in oceanography and teaching” —…
Ostfriesentee — Double diffusion in a tea cup
Showing double-diffusive mixing in tank experiments is a pain if you try to do it the proper way with carefully measured temperatures and salinities. It is, however, super simple, if…
#kitchenoceanography or #bathtubphysics? Playing with cool phenomena, water and dye
Some bathtub magic today! Let’s take a paper kitchen towel and an empty glass. Squish the paper towel into the empty glass, submerge it upside down into the water aaand……
My first attempt at building a rotating table for kitchen oceanography using LEGO
Inspired by the article “Affordable Rotating Fluid Demonstrations for Geoscience Education: the DIYnamics Project” by the Hill et al. (2018), I spent a fun Sunday afternoon with my friends Joke and…
#KitchenOceanography with Judith and her hot chocolate
Let’s talk about zonal jets! They keep popping into my life all the time right now, and that has got to mean something, right? Zonal jets, for all that are…
Update on freezing ice cubes and the temperature distribution in our freezer
After writing the blog post on sea ice formation, brine release and what ice cubes can tell you about your freezer earlier today, I prepared some more ice cubes (because you…
Sea ice formation, brine release, or: What ice cubes can tell you about your freezer
Many of my kitchen oceanography experiments use dyed ice cubes, usually because it makes it easier to track the melt water (for example when looking at how quickly ice cubes…
Stuff you can (and should!) observe in your kitchen: circulation in the water when boiling eggs
Now that I have introduced the new tag “kitchen oceanography: food related” to my blog, it’s time to add a couple new posts to that category. And today I have…
Layered latte: A great real-life example of double-diffusive mixing!
Sometimes sitting in a café for a work meeting with #lieblingskollegin Julia can lead to unexpected discoveries of oceanographic processes — in my latte! It’s those little things that inspire blog…
Experiment: Double-diffusive mixing (salt fingering)
On the coolest process in oceanography. My favorite oceanographic process, as all of my students and many of my acquaintances know, is double-diffusive mixing. Look at how awesome it is:…
Guest post: Using seawater to make bread!
Last week I got one of the coolest emails I have ever received: Someone had found my blog while googling for the salt content of seawater in order to use…
Experiment: Temperature-driven circulation
My favorite experiment. Quick and easy and very impressive way to illustrate the influence of temperature on water densities. This experiment is great if you want to talk about temperature…
Tides themselves don’t induce (a lot of) mixing, only tides hitting topography do. An experiment.
As you might have noticed, the last couple of days I have been super excited to play with the large tanks at GFI in Bergen. But then there are also…
Experiment: Oceanic overturning circulation (the slightly more complicated version)
The experiment presented on this page is called the “slightly more complicated version” because it builds on the experiment “oceanic overturning circulation (the easiest version)” here. Background One of the…
Experiment: Oceanic overturning circulation (the easiest version)
“The easiest” in the title of this page is to show the contrast to a “slightly more complicated” version here. Background One of the first concepts people hear about in the context…
Experiment: Eddy in a jar
Rotating experiments in your kitchen. Eddies, those large, rotating structures in the ocean, are pretty hard to imagine. Of course, you can see them on many different scales, so you…
Experiment: Ice cubes melting in fresh water and salt water
Explore how melting of ice cubes floating in water is influenced by the salinity of the water. Important oceanographic concepts like density and density driven currents are visualized and can…
Cloud in a bottle experiment
Guest post by Susann Tegtmeier (written two months ago, I just never got around to posting it. Sorry!) — No one likes clouds when they bring rain, but what if…
“Laboratory layered latte” – combining latte and double diffusion. Easily my favourite paper ever!
My friends know me well. Especially A&I, which was proven again when they sent me the link to an article about two things that I am mildly obsessed with: Latte…
Of cupcakes and ice cores
For a popular science presentation on climate change, I needed a simple illustration for how ice cores can be used as archives of past climates. Luckily, my sister and family…
Candles in the wind. Or: The things that keep a nerd entertained during speeches at a conference dinner.
What keeps you entertained at conference dinners is probably different for different people, but we quite enjoyed watching how the candles placed closer to the door to the balcony burned…
Café Latte
Even though most people think I am crazy, I always love watching the convection pattern develop in a hot drink.
Pythagoras’ Cup
Yep, I’ve been playing this weekend :-) After seeing this on Facebook a while back I just couldn’t resist… Enjoy! :-)
Evaporating sea water
How much salt is there in sea water? What concentration do you need before crystals start forming? What will those crystals look like? I am sure those are the kind…
One glance — do you know which of the bottles is empty?
The other day I was sitting in my conservatory with a friend when I had to take the photo below: Can you see how one bottle refracts light and the other…
Frost flowers on ice cream: When you start thinking about phenomena and something really annoying, all of a sudden, becomes really cool.
Frost flowers on ice cream. You must have seen them before: They sometimes occur when you’ve had some ice cream, put the left-overs back in the freezer, and take them out…
Taking the hydrostatic paradox to the next (water) level
How well do people understand hydrostatics? I am preparing a workshop for tomorrow night and I am getting very bored by the questions that I have been using to introduce…
A string of bubbles
Have you ever noticed champagne bubbles that form as a string right in the middle of the glass and hardly anywhere else? This leads to the very cool pattern you…
Considered exemplary: My “ice cubes melting in fresh water and salt water” in the “on the cutting edge” teaching collection! :-)
After reading recently that I am being considered the queen of the melting ice cube (aaaaw, thank you!!!), having my movies of the experiment featured in Elin Darelius and Petra Langebroek’s article…
Using the “melting ice cube” experiment to let future instructors experience inquiry-based learning.
Using the “melting ice cube” experiment to let future instructors experience inquiry-based learning. I recently (well, last year, but you know…) got the chance to fill in for a colleague…
One of the most exciting things about work travel?
One of the most exciting things about work travel? Staying in tons of different hotels, which all have different opportunities to play with water. For example at a recent team…
My favorite demonstration of the coolest mixing process: Salt fingering!
I am updating many of my old posts on experiments and combining multiple posts on the same topic to come up with a state-of-the-art post, so you can always find the…
Temperature-driven overturning experiment – the easy way
In my last post, I showed you the legendary overturning experiment. And guess what occurred to me? That there is an even easier way to show the same thing. No gel…
A very simple overturning experiment for outreach and teaching
For one of my side-projects I needed higher-resolution photos of the overturning experiment, so I had to redo it. Figured I’d share them with you, too. You know the experiment: gel…
On buoyancy
This is an experiment that Martin brought to Ratzeburg and that he let me use on my blog: Using a beam balance to talk about buoyancy. So at first we…
Tales of a science camp: 1. Forscherfreizeit Ratzeburg
Conny, Siska, Martin and myself just — we came back home only yesterday! — ran a summer camp for teenagers called “Forscherfreizeit Ratzeburg”. The idea was to combine a fun…
Strawberry ice cream crystals
My new favorite thing is to put strawberries through a blender and then freeze small portions of that to eat as ice cream later. It is super yummy plus you…
Stream lines and paper towels
We’ve been talking about stream lines a lot recently (see for example the flow around a paddle or flow around other stuff). I’ve always heard stories about a neat way of…
More mystery tubes
My mystery tube blog post seems to have inspired a lot of people. How awesome! This is what my parents sent me: And my friend Kristin Richter took the whole thing…
Developing a hypothesis: Mystery tubes
Finally I know why I’ve been collecting empty toilet paper and kitchen paper rolls for ages: To build mystery tubes! I only built a prototype, but it works just fine.…
Watching the solar eclipse using “household items”
Different methods to project the sun to watch it safely. During our recent PBL workshop, we came up with a number of different ways to watch a solar eclipse by…
Vortex streets on a plate
You might think that three hours of canoe polo on a Saturday morning would be enough water for the day, but no. As when I did the experiment for the “eddies in a…
Eddies in a jar
Rotating experiments in your kitchen. Do you know those Saturday mornings when you wake up and just know that you have to do oceanography experiments? I had one of those…
Fog and clouds in a bottle
A little bit of hands-on meteorology for a change. This post is inspired by www.planet-science.com‘s “fog in a bottle” and “make a cloud in a bottle” posts. Inspired meaning that…
Tides in a glass
A very simple experiment to show how waves can travel around an ocean basin. I wrote these instructions for a book project that I was lucky enough to get involved…
Ice cubes melting at the bottom of the beakers
Because surely there is one more post in this topic? ;-) For those of you who haven’t heard about the “melting ice cube” obsession of mine, please check out the…
Why folic acid might be good for people, but not so good for tank experiments
I had to do the complete series of experiments, of course… The other day I mentioned that I had used salt from my kitchen for the “ice cubes melting in…
Melting ice cubes, again
Somehow I am stuck on this demonstration! I can’t let go of this experiment. Last time I posted about it, someone (Hallo Papa!) complained about the background and how I…
The icy elevator
Weird things happening when ice cubes melt. Remember I said that there were weird and wonderful things going on when I last ran the melting ice cubes in salt and…
Melting ice cubes reloaded
Or why you should pay attention to the kind of salt you use for your experiments. The melting ice cubes in salt and fresh water is one of my favorites that…
Salt fingering
My absolute favorite experiment ever: salt fingering. I know I’ve said it before about another experiment, even today, but this is my absolute favorite experiment and I still get endlessly…
Surface tension with a twist
The coolest surface tension demonstration yet! Just because it is AWESOME. Enjoy! Watch the video here. oh, you didn’t think I would only post one video, did you? ;-)
Capillary effects
When hydrostatics just doesn’t explain things. Occasionally one notices water levels in straws that are slightly above the water levels in the glass. And of course – even though we…
Surface tension and washing-up liquid
How to destroy surface tension. Remember how in this post my parents sent me a picture of the experiment that I didn’t get to work out? Later the same day…
Surface tension and office supplies.
Lots of stuff an be made to float on water just because of surface tension. This morning, I was taking pictures of heaps of waters on coins. I was planning to…
Surface tension – heaps of water.
The classical way of demonstrating surface tension. When talking about surface tension, the classical thing to do is to talk about the shape of drops of water. As seen before…
Refraction of light in water – coins and lenses.
More on what water can do to light. Remember my fascination with dandelions? Just to remind you: Especially in combination with coins and water droplets, dandelions are a source of…
Refraction of light in water.
What water can do to light. In the last post, I showed you a couple of pictures of a vase filled with dandelions. Turns out this might not have been enough of…
Dandelions
Making dandelion stem spirals. It’s sunny, dandelions are everywhere and not every post on this blog has to be about oceanography in the strictest sense (although you’ll see the connection…
Vacuum pumps
What else did you think we tested them on? Before using my parents’ vacuum pumps (“vacuum” being used in a loose sense of the word…) on water in this post, we…
Bubble size depending on pressure
More playing with a vacuum pump. In this post, we talked about how decreasing the pressure on water can make dissolved gases come out of solution. But what happens if…
Gases dissolved in water
A simple experiment to show that there are really gases dissolved in water. Luckily, my parents like to play at least as much as I do. So when I got…
The insulating properties of marshmallows
Ending hot-beverages-week in style. So now we know how to cool down your tea by blowing on it and how to cool it down quickly (or not) by adding milk. So what…
Tea and milk
More physics applications connected to tea. After the frustrations of taking pictures of steam in my last post, I decided that I could use the very same cute mug to…
Blowing on hot tea
Why would it be interesting to talk about this in a science class? As a kid I used to wonder why blowing on a hot soup or beverage should be…
Advection fog
When warm, moist air is advected and brought in contact with colder surfaces. Recently I’ve been starting to think about a course I’ll be teaching later this year, and how…
Hydraulic jump II
More movies of my kitchen sink. I am really fascinated by the hydraulic jumps in my kitchen sink. I can’t believe I haven’t used this before when I was teaching!…
An overturning experiment
A simple experiment that shows how the large-scale thermally-driven ocean circulation works. Someone recently asked me whether I had ideas for experiments for her course in ocean sciences for non-majors.…
Modeling the Denmark Strait Overflow
Ha, this is a bad pun. We are modeling the Denmark Strait Overflow – but in a non-numerical, small-scale-and-playdough kind of way. More than a year ago, Kjetil and I ran…
Barometer problem.
Still talking about hydrostatic pressure. Yes, I am not done with hydrostatic pressure yet! One of the problems students were given in the study “Identifying and addressing student difficulties with…
Hydrostatic pressure
What are students not understanding about hydrostatic pressure? Tomorrow (today by the time this post will go online, I guess) I will present the paper “Identifying and addressing student difficulties…
Cartesian diver – organic version
Using orange peel as cartesian divers. Guess what my mom told me when we were playing with cartesian divers the other day? That orange peel works really well as a…
Cartesian diver
Compressibility of water and air. Today I want to talk about the different compressibilities of water and air. Actually, no, I just want to show you an experiment. One way…
Non-newtonian fluids.
Playing with cornstarch and water. The other day my mom and I played with cornstarch and water. I have always been wanting to experiment more with non-newtonian fluids, and then…
Salt fingering – DIY
How to easily set up the stratification for the salt fingering process. Setting up stratifications in tanks is a pain. Of course there are sophisticated methods, but when you want…
Diffusive layering. Or: This is not a trick question!
The “other” double-diffusive mixing process. After having talked extensively about double diffusive mixing in my courses, I tend to assume that students not only remember that there is such thing as…
Salt fingering
How to show my favorite oceanographic process in class, and why. As I mentioned in this post, I have used double-diffusive mixing extensively in my teaching. For several reasons: Firstly,…
Double-diffusive mixing
On the coolest process in oceanography. My favorite oceanographic process, as all of my students and many of my acquaintances know, is double-diffusive mixing. Look at how awesome it is:…
Mediterranean outflow
Students demonstrating the mediterranean outflow in a tank. As reported earlier, students had to conduct experiments and present their results as part of CMM31. Niklas chose to demonstrate the mediterranean outflow…
The broken spoon
Refraction of light in water. I just happened to notice this the other day, so I thought I’d take a picture and share it with you. It is amazing how…
Progressive waves on a rope
Visualization of progressive waves: wave form and energy move forward while the rope itself stays in place. When I talked about waves in GEOF130 recently, in order to explain the…
Why melting sea ice does not contribute to sea level rise.
Simple experiment on why the impact of glaciers and sea ice on sea level, respectively, are not the same. It could be so simple: An ice cube sinks into water…
Measuring temperature.
Students build thermometers. As described in this post, I like to have students build “instruments” to measure the most oceanographic properties (temperature, salinity and density). I find that they appreciate oceanographic…
Measuring salinity
Students evaporate water to measure the salinity of a water sample. As described in this post, I like to have students build “instruments” to measure the most oceanographic properties (temperature, salinity…
Measuring density
Students build a device to measure density. As described in this post, I like to have students build “instruments” to measure the most oceanographic properties (temperature, salinity and density). I…
Tasting sea water reloaded
Doing the “tasting sea water” activity again with a different group of students. A very good introduction to the concept of salinity is the “tasting sea water” activity. Last time…
Internal waves in a bottle
Internal waves are shown in simple 0.5l bottles. Waves travel on the interface between fluids of different densities and the phase speed of those waves depends on the density difference…
How mountains form
A very simple visualization of rock folding. See? When I said “very simple” I meant “very simple”. But it does help explain why sometimes rock layers are not nice and…
On the structure of fresh water and salt water ice
More details on the structure of fresh water and salt water ice. Fresh water and salt water ice have very different structures as I already discussed in this post. In the…
Melting ice cubes – what contexts to use this experiment in (post 4/4)
What contexts can the “ice cubes melting in fresh water and in salt water” experiment be used in? As you might have noticed, I really like the “ice cubes melting…
Melting ice cubes – one experiment, many ways (post 3/4)
Different didactical settings in which the “ice cubes melting in fresh and salt water” experiment can be used. In part 1 and 2 of this series, I showed two different…
How much salt is there in sea water?
Visualization of how much salt is actually contained in sea water. When preparing “sea water samples” for class, it is always astonishing to me how much salt I have to…
Properties of sea ice and fresh water ice
Sea ice and fresh water ice have distinctly different properties that can easily be investigated even in big class rooms. In “on how ice freezes from salt water” I talked…
Ice cubes melting in fresh water and salt water (post 2/4)
The “ice cubes melting in fresh water and salt water” experiment the way I usually use it in class. — Edit — For an updated description of this experiment please…
Ice cubes melting in salt water and freshwater (post 1/4)
Experiment to visualize the effects of density differences on ocean circulation. This is the first post in a series on one of my favorite in-class experiments; I have so much…
Forskningsdagene are almost upon us
Preparations for experiments to be shown at the science fair “forskningsdagene” are under preparation. Forskningsdagene, a cooperation between research institutes and schools, science centers and other educational places, will take…
Heat capacity of air and water
Hands-on activity to better understand the concept and consequences of heat capacity. Also a great party trick. Imagine you take a balloon. Any kind of normal balloon. You blow it…
And even more on density
My favorite experiment. Quick and easy and very impressive way to illustrate the influence of temperature on water densities. Today in the “introduction to oceanography” (GEOF130) we conducted my favorite…
More on density
Extremely simple experiment to illustrate the effect of density differences. At room temperature, will coke cans float or sink in freshwater? And how about coke light? Btw, this experiment is…
How to measure temperature, salinity and density
Three in-class experiments run in parallel. Great if you want to discuss how properties are measured and what kind of difficulties you might encounter. Temperature, salinity and density are the…
Tasting sea water
Hands-on activity on sea water salinity In the first lecture of the “introduction to oceanography” GEOF130 course 2013, we investigated water samples from four different regions: The Mediterranean, the tropical…