Clouds in bottles and licking igloos

Today started out in Veera's grade 6 class.  We reviewed how to make and record measurements, then set up three stations around the room for them to rotate between.  Ashley had them make a thermometer, Niall made Cartesian divers, and my group made a cloud in a bottle.

Cloud in a bottle.

Next we headed to Pat's grade 1s for the last time this week.  We made thermometers with them.  We premade a mixture of water and rubbing alcohol (use the same amount of each) with some food colouring to make the liquid easy to see and filled the bottom 1-2 cm of a plastic bottle.  The grade 1s then rolled a ball of clay, flattened it, and poked a hole through the centre with a pencil.  We put a straw through the hole and then put the straw into the liquid in the bottle. We pulled the clay tight over the sides of the bottle and pinched it around the straw (to trap the air inside).  And there you have it--a finished thermometer (minus the calibration).  The heat from the students' hands is enough to make the liquid level rise above the top of the straw!

A finished thermometer with the liquid level fairly high.

During recess, I looked around their classroom for a bit and saw something that caught me off-guard; their food guide is different than ours.  In the "meat" section, they have things like whales, seals, caribou, and walrus.  

Nunavut food guide.

 After recess we took Jeena's grade 2s back outside to look for a spot to put their thermometer (for their measurements).  We finished off the class by making weather puppets.  We had sun, raindrop, cloud, and rainbow shapes to choose from.  Most of the kids picked rainbows.

Making a rainbow weather puppet.

 Then we headed to Darlene's grade 3 class to review how to take wind measurements and make thermometers.  When we came back for lunch today, the restaurant was busy, so we immediately went over to the grocery store to buy lunch meat, cheese, bananas, and salad, so we could have a proper lunch and be energized for the rest of the day.

With Yvonne I.'s grade 5s after lunch, we sorted photos into groups of how much solar radiation would reach Earth.  One girl in my group ended up moving over to Niall's group.  I don't think she liked me very much.  One of the times we visited earlier in the week, she was handing out candy to the other students and her teacher at the time, Leah, told her to put it away.  Today I was sitting at a table with my group (including her).  While Ashley was trying to start the class, this girl was handing out candy to the others at the table.  I ask her to put it away and she completely ignored me.  I asked her if Leah would be okay with her having it.  She nodded.  Then I questioned, "If I asked Leah right now, would she say it is okay?"  "Don't!" she cried.  "If you aren't allowed to have it in class with Leah, then you aren't allowed to have it in class right now," I replied.  She reluctantly put the candy back into her pocket.

After the picture activity, the class sat on the floor together for Niall's solar radiation presentation, then we split back up into our groups to learn about the pyranometer and the measurements they will be making.  One of the boys in my group was sitting very nicely on a chair, waiting for others to join us, when this girl came up behind him, tilted his chair, and pulled it out from under him.  He fell to the ground and immediately whined (to her) for his chair back.  I told her to give the chair back and find one that no one was using.  She just looked at me with a who-do-you-think-you-are look.  The boy said he was okay; he could sit on his knees and still work at the table, so there was no point in forcing her to give the chair back.  However, I did put on my stern voice, looked directly at her, and said, "That was not nice.  Not nice at all.  I do not like that type of behaviour."  We started the activity and when I looked up, I noticed she left my group and joined Niall's.  I can understand not liking me after hearing my stern voice--it has made first year university students cry!

We were in for a surprise when we went to Meeka's grade 4 class!  The grade fours that were there were not the ones that we had been seeing earlier in the week.  Apparently the principal wants both grade four classes to do the experiments.  Thank goodness we didn't bring all of the stuff home last night (like we have been doing).  We skipped an introduction to speed through what the atmosphere, wind, and instruments they will be using are and the awesome water experiment.  We had a spare afterwards and Meeka was okay with us using more of her time, so we played the name game with the students.  One student, Edna, had a perfect shirt for today!

Edna's shirt

 To end the school day, we went to Paul's grade 7 class, reviewed the instruments, and set up the three demos: home-made thermometers, Cartesian divers, and a cloud in a bottle.

Explaining what we were about to do to make a cloud.

 To make a cloud, we used a large glass container, a plastic glove, a little bit of warm water, and matches.  Make sure the mouth of the container is large enough to fit your hand in easily and the opening of the glove is large enough to pull over the mouth of the container.  You also need someone to help you with this.  Put the glove on and put the water into the container.  Strike a match and toss it into the water.  Quickly put your gloved hand into the container and have your helper pull the edges of the glove over the lip of the container as fast as possible to trap the smoke.  You now have all of the materials you need to make a cloud inside the jar: water and something for it to nucleate on--smoke.  Hold onto the glove and very quickly pull your hand part way out of the container (make sure not to rip the glove or pull it off the lip).  Doing this creates a low pressure inside the jar and you should see a cloud form.  Sometimes it is easier to see with a flashlight.

After class, and a good supper (honey garlic "Oktoberfest sausage" with rice and veggies), I took a walk up to the high school to see the igloos again.  The sunset was very pretty.

Sunset behind igloos.

Sunset behind the high school.

 They made quite the progress on the igloos.  The circle on the ground a few days ago is now one igloo room and the igloo that looked like it had a few loose blocks has a doorway and part of a second room.

A few days ago, this igloo was merely a circle on the ground.

A few days ago, this igloo only had one room.

The igloo above from a different angle.

 Before I left London, I told people I was going to Igloolik, pronounced "igloo"-"lick".  A friend and I joked around about the name for a bit and somewhere in there I said that if I saw an igloo, I'd lick it.  So, now I can say that I've licked an igloo in Igloolik--twice.  The first lick was mostly a mouthful of clean, refreshing snow (tasted like good water).  For the second one, I made sure to pick a spot that wasn't really a snow drift, but looked more like the ice blocks that the igloos are made out of.  My tongue got stuck a little, but nothing drastic (I don't think I lost any skin, but my tongue sure was frozen for a while!).  I couldn't really taste anything through the cold.

Snow drifts.

Panorama of sunset behind the high school.

 It was really cold out.  So cold out, my camera didn't want to work.  If I tried taking a video, it would pretend it was dying so that I would put it back in my warm pocket.  The panorama pictures are a function on the camera.  You can see in the picture below that it didn't quite mesh the pictures together correctly (there is an obvious line that doesn't match near the right hand side.  As I took more pictures, this effect got worse.

My shutter finger got pretty cold too, so I can't really complain about the camera.  At one point my hands were so cold, I couldn't feel what my fingers were doing, and--even if I looked at them--I couldn't force my fingers to put my camera in my pocket (my left hand then came to the rescue). At whatever temperature it was (probably about -19 °C) it only takes a minute for your hands to get like that!  I think I might have got slight frost bite in my right index finger; there is a small pressure point under my nail that hurts when I type.

Panorama of sunset with an igloo.

After visiting the igloos and seeing the sun set, I walked out onto the bay to take pictures of the moon and the hamlet from the ocean.

The moon, looking out toward ice covered ocean.

North side of Igloolik.

Southwest side of Igloolik.

I watched my footing as I walked back to the inn and saw this huge crack in the snow that went as far as I could see in both directions.  I'm not sure if I walked out on it like that or if it cracked while I was out there, but the ice felt pretty secure while I was walking.

Crack in snow over the bay.