What is the best way to melt an ice cube?

This was the investigation that Year 2 classes did this week.

They decided that to make ice melt you need to heat it up.

The students had to think about where they would put ice cubes in the class to make them melt. There was also some equipment they could use.

They came up with:

• Under a light
• In the sun
• By the heater
• In someone's hands
• In some hot water
• On top of the hot water bottle
• Wrapped in a towel

First we put ice cubes into glass dishes. We had to make sure the ice was the same size so the test was fair.

Then we put each dish in a different place and patiently watched to see the ice melt.

Which one do you think melted the fastest?

In most classes the ice cube that melted the fastest was the one in someones hands or the one in the hot water.

We were surprised that the ice in someones hands melted faster than the heater. We think it was because our hands were touching the glass dish so it would heat up faster and pass the heat on to the ice. The hot water did the same because it was surrounding the dish.