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Blubber
The idea for this week's experiment came from our kayaking trip.
The water was COLD! Luckily, we all had wet suits to help keep us warm. It is
enough to make you think about the animals that live in it all the time. How can
a seal or a whale stay warm enough to survive in cold water? To find out, you
will need:
First, we need an ice cold ocean. Put the ice into the bowl of
water and stir it a bit, to get the water very cold. Put your hand into it. Hold
it there while you imagine spending your entire life in this. Ouch!
Whales and seals use a layer of blubber to help protect them.
This blubber is a heavy layer of fat which holds the heat in. To simulate this,
we need to make a thick layer of fat. Put about a cup of the shortening into one
of the plastic bags. Shortening, lard and butter are all mostly fat, so they
will work very well for our experiment. Put your hand into the other bag.
That will keep the lard off your skin when you put that hand into the bad with
the lard. Squeeze the lard to get it spread evenly over your hand.
Put a plastic bag over your other hand. Then put both hands into
the ice water. Notice the difference. The hand that is in the plain, plastic bag
gets cold very quickly. The other hand stays much warmer. That is how the
blubber works for the whale. In fact, the blubber holds in the heat so well that
the whale needs to use its flippers as a way to get rid of excess heat.
Blood vessels in the flippers expand if the whale gets too hot, letting heat
escape into the surrounding water.
Our wet suits did not keep us that warm, but it was MUCH nicer
than it would have been without them. Now I have to get my niece and nephew into
the RV (which will be much like trying to herd cats), so we can head off for a
week of camping in Yosemite.
Have a wonder filled week.
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