TAKE NOTE
Cool science: A lesson runs through it
Science is a ball--a snowball, that is--for 8th graders at Holbrook School in Holden, Me.
As part of a science experiment to design insulating packaging, students at the public middle school last month packs a snowball in a cardboard box lined with insulation, sawdust, and dry ice. Then they sent it across the country by overnight mail to Redwood Intermediate School in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
After its coast-to-coast journey, the snowball lost just one gram between Maine and California.
The students in California repackaged the snow and sent it back to Maine in the form of a snow cone.
The snow lost just three more grams along the way.
"It was a weird idea. But I tried it , and it worked out," said David Palmer, the Holbrook School science teacher whose class started the frozen exchange.
Having found a way to ship snow more or less intact, Mr. Palmer's class hopes to have the same success with some delicate painted eggshells it sent this month to China, Hawaii, and California.
"We're not keeping our noses stuck in a textbook all the time," Mr. Palmer said.