Snowflakes are among nature’s most beautiful and short-lived creations. Yet there is a way to preserve these fragile wonders to study or admire them anytime you wish. You and a group of your friends can do this project with about $20 worth of supplies available at any art store. (And you’ll need a snowstorm.)
What You’ll Need:
What You’ll Do:
Step 1: Stash the acetate and cardboard sheets in the freezer. Turn the box or cooler upside down outdoors. Place can of acrylic outside to cool.
Step 2: Once it starts to snow, take the acetate and cardboard from the freezer and head outside. Duck under a porch or overhang to protect everything from falling snow. With clothespins, fasten a single sheet of acetate to a piece of cardboard. Spray the acetate sheet with a thin coat of acrylic from the air-chilled can. (If you use too much, the snow will melt in the liquid.)
Step 3: Hold up the contraption by the clothespins and step out in the falling snow so that individual flakes collect on the acetate sheet. You’ll want a lot, but not so many that they begin to fall on top of one another.
Step 4: Once you have enough, carefully tuck the sheet under the cardboard box or cooler.
Step 5: After an hour, the snowflakes that stuck to the acetate will have evaporated, leaving behind perfect acrylic replicas. Hold the acetate up to a light and scan the sheet with a magnifying glass or an 8X slide viewer. You may also project the crystalline images onto a screen with an overhead projector.
FROZEN FACTS
Tags: Winter
this is awesome. I can’t wait till next year when it snows to try this
i am going to share this with my art teacher!!
this is so awesome !!! +_+
cool its awesome
jamestown
woah! this is the craziest thing…I did this a topic to my reasearch paper for my life goal and now i know it is possible i am going to try it!
this was one of my things that i had on my life list! and now it is possible!
wow I might try that. awsome
introesting
awsome
if only it snowed in arizona :/
oooh… aaah…
i think it looks like fun i cant wate to tell my Dad
Awesome cant wait to try it
This is so awesome. How did the author figure this process out?
Awesome!!
kool
wow
This is so cool! I know I’m going to try this!
well technicaly, the atoms are arranged in hexagons when water is frozen
that is amazing!!
COOL!
WOW!
i never knew you could do that!
old snow flakes might be woth a lot of money in the future.
that would be cool keeping the oldest snowflake in the world and you might get in Guiness World records book and you could sell it for a lot of money mabey at that the time they wont have any snow and it would be worth even more!
thats awesome how it doesent melt when you putt it in glass.
Catch a snowflake and keep it forever was awesome !!!!!!!
two snowflakes could be alik for example a snow flake in virginia could be the same as one in japan but not be known
NO ITS NOT POSSIBLE FOR TWO SNOWFLAKES BE ALIKE!!!!! DIDNT U READ THE STORY
!!!!
Its so cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
get it?
COOL!!!!!!!