Ice & Rope Experiment

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Here is another simple science experiment you can do at home with little supplies: pick up ice with rope! So cool!

This is a easy experiment to impress kids, and to teach them about science too! My kids were so surprised to see that at firsts the rope couldn’t pick up the ice but after we include the magic ingredient the rope did pick up the ice.

You will need:

– a block of ice
– a glass
– water
– rope
– salt

What to do:

We placed a ice cube in a class of water and placed the rope on top of the ice with the 2 ends of the rope hanging over the glass. I then showed the kids you cannot lift the ice cube with the rope.

We then took the magic ingredient, the salt, and poured a little onto the piece of rope that touched the ice. We gave it a minute to settle and picked it up. The ice cube stuck to the rope!

The reason this happens is because salt lowers the waters freeze point to below 0 degrees celsius. The place where the salt falls in the ice cube melts a little and then freeze again with the rope frozen to it. Making it possible to lift the ice out if the water.

After you discovered the secret try to include more ice cubes or more glasses to see how many you can lift on a piece of rope.