Year 2 - Sycamore's Arctic Investigation

In Sycamore class, our Arctic topic is well underway and we are enjoying learning about the Inuit people and the different Arctic animals that live across the snow covered wilderness!

We conducted a science experiment into the insulating properties of blubber. Blubber is the thick layer of fat that surrounds animals, such as polar bears and seals. Blubber acts as a thermal coat to keep the animals warm in the freezing conditions.

We used lard, ice cubes, water and sandwich bags to conduct our experiment.

We filled one bag with lard and then placed our hand inside the other (clean) bag and inserted this into the middle of the blubber. We then immersed our control hand (hand without blubber) and our blubber hands into the ice cold water and compared the two temperatures.

We were unable to feel the icy water on the hand wrapped in blubber but our control hand felt freezing. We concluded that the layer of blubber protected animals from the harsh conditions of the Arctic very well and we were fascinated to see how effective it really is!

Here are some pictures from our blubber experiment!