We held a stay-at-home summer camp at our home back in 2020 that we called Camp Eureka. It was basically five days of the kids getting to be in charge and decide everything we did except that for five days I could also pick a science experiment to do. (I tried to make it somewhat educational!) One of the experiments we tried for a camp prize, was how long you could keep your hand in ice water using a blubber glove.
During COVID times – we have plenty of disposable gloves around the house😳 – so we used two of them to make a blubber glove and learn all about animal adaptations of polar bears.
What you need: a pair of latex gloves, 1/2 cup of shortening, and a bowl of ice water
What you do:
- Set up the blubber glove challenge and announce there is a trophy at the end of the week for the camper who can keep their hand in ice water the longest
- See how long they can keep their hand in with a plain glove – for us it was about 20 seconds
- Now fill an empty glove with shortening and slide their gloved hand inside of that one so that the layers are glove/shortening/glove
- Try again to see if this layer of shortening “blubber” like a polar bear can help them keep their hands in the ice water longer – for us it was 1-minute 20 seconds
What’s the science: Shortening, like blubber in polar bears, is fat and an insulator. It will keep the cold temperatures away from the skin longer. This was a “cool” animal adaptation to explore here at Camp Eureka! 😎 We hope you enjoy making your own blubber glove too!
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