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 ways of using the “ice cubes melting in fresh water and salt water” experiment in lectures. Today I want to back up a little bit […]

Ice cubes melting in fresh water and salt water

Today we are doing the melting ice cubes experiment in fancy glasses, because Elin is giving a fancy lecture tonight: The Nansen Memorial Lecture of the Norwegian Science Academy in Oslo! Cheers! We each had green ice cubes in our glasses, but one of our glasses contained fresh water and the other one salt water, […]

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 be discussed on the basis of this experiment. Context Audience This hands-on experiment is suited for many different audiences and can be used to achieve a wealth […]

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 on “fun in the kitchen”, and hearing that the activity I posted on the “On The Cutting Edge”‘s website using the very same experiment has been […]

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 links to other posts at the end of this post. For everybody else’s sake, let’s dive right in! When Kristin and I ran the workshop […]

Dangers of blogging, or ice cubes melting in fresh water and salt water

When students have read blog posts of mine before doing experiments in class, it takes away a lot of the exploration. Since I was planning to blog about the CMM31 course, I had told students that I often blogged about my teaching and asked for their consent to share their images and details from our […]

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 go to this page! — Edit — You might remember the “ice cubes melting in fresh water and salt water experiment” from a couple of […]

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 to say about it that we’ll have to break it up into several posts. Post 1 (this post) will present one setup of the experiment, […]

Did you know that uranine starts fluorescing again when the ice cubes melt?

Yes, I had to test that! :-D Why do I find this exciting? Because that means that a phase change of the water switches fluorescence as a tracer of that water on and off. Or the other way round: Seeing water fluoresce (or not) tells you what state the water is in without having to […]

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 melt in freshwater vs salt water, or for forcing overturning circulations). But the dyed ice cubes tell interesting stories all by themselves, too! Salt water […]