Discover what you can build with ice. Try to keep ice cubes from melting. Create colored ice for painting

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1 Visit Moody Gardens this holiday season and check out the coolest exhibit around ICE LAND: Ice Sculptures. After your visit, try out these ice-related activities. Discover what you can build with ice Try to keep ice cubes from melting Create colored ice for painting Stay cool and have fun! Over 6,000 blocks of ice were used in the making of ICE LAND: Ice Sculptures. If you lined the blocks of ice up end to end it would reach 3.79 miles. If you stacked the ice blocks it would be taller than 13 Empire State buildings combined.

2 120 male African Elephants equals 900 tons It took over 6,000 blocks, weighing a total of 900 tons, to create ICE LAND: Ice Sculptures. A team of 28 master ice sculptors traveled from Harbin, China to Galveston to create the sculptures for ICE LAND: Ice Sculptures. When they arrived, they went to work with tools ranging from small picks to chainsaws. They worked almost 1,080 hours over a 47 day period to complete the exhibit. Test out your ice sculpting skills with this activity. What can you create? ICE BUILDING ACTIVITY Materials: Water Food coloring, assorted colors Cups/bowls Spoons/eye droppers Small plates Ice cube trays or molds in assorted shape (create logs by using an ice stick mold for water bottles) Activity: 1. Use the food coloring to tint several cups of water. Pour the water into the different ice cube trays and molds. Leave in the freezer overnight. 2. Once frozen, use the ice cubes to create structures, like bridges and buildings, or create a unique masterpiece. Use the small plates to build on and use drops of water to glue the ice cubes together. 3. Just like our sculptures, these won t last forever. Take a picture or draw your sculpture so you can remember what you created. There are over 50 sculptures, some over 30 feet tall, in ICE LAND: Ice Sculptures.

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4 To keep the ice sculptures from melting, a special tent was built at Moody Gardens. The tent is 28,000 square feet, almost half the size of a football field. It has space for power and industrial chillers, while the exhibit utilizes 17,000 square feet. The tent is insulated and special flooring was used to help keep the temperature a steady 9 o F. Can you keep ice from melting? Give it a try with the Ice Box activity. ICE BOX ACTIVITY Materials: Cardboard box (less than 1 cubic foot) Masking tape Aluminum foil 2 ice cubes of the same size Timer or clock Waxed paper Newspaper Rubber bands or string Bowl Activity: 1. Build an ice box using the materials listed. Your goal is to see how long you can keep an ice cube from melting. What do you think will work best to keep the heat from melting the ice cube? Should you wrap the box in the aluminum foil or the newspaper? Should you hang the ice cube in the box or let it touch the ground? Be creative! 2. Once you have created your ice box, put one ice cube inside of it. Take the other ice cube and put it in the bowl. This will be your control sample. Place your ice box and bowl in the same location (outside or inside). Observe the ice cubes every thirty minutes to see what is happening. Are the ice cubes the same size still? Is one melting faster than the other? What do you think will happen? If the ice cube in your ice box melted as fast as the one in the bowl (the control), what does that tell you about your ice box? Use the ICE BOX ACTIVITY DATA SHEET to record your observations. 3. Keep experimenting with your ice box. Build new ones with different materials, would lining the box with thick material help? What about creating a pillow of shortening in a plastic bag? What works best to slow down your ice melting? Why do some materials work better than others? It has been 115 years since Galveston s temperature reached 9 o. That is the same year the paperclip was invented!

5 ICE BOX ACTIVITY DATA SHEET Check your ice cubes every 30 minutes, starting when you place them in the containers. Use the table to record which ice cube is bigger when you observe them. Ice box ice cube 0 minutes 30 minutes 60 minutes 90 minutes Bowl ice cube (control) Same size Which ice cube melted the fastest? Is this what you expected to happen? What did you use to make your ice box? What would you use next time to keep the ice from melting?

6 A reverse osmosis process was used to create the crystal clear ice blocks seen in ICE LAND: Ice Sculptures. Many of the blocks were colorized using a mixture of milk and water soluble tempera paints. There were 42 different colors used in the exhibit and each color had to be an exact match to those needed to create the specific characters. Different colors were often mixed together to reach the correct color. Did you know that mixing different combinations of red, blue and yellow can create other colors? Try this ice painting activity to see what happens when you mix colors. ICE PAINTING ACTIVITY Materials: Water Ice cube tray Small bowls or cups Sketch paper Food coloring in red, blue and yellow Spoons Scissors Craft sticks Activity: 1. Pour ¼ of a cup of water into each of the bowls or cups. Add 5 drops of red food coloring into the first cup and mix. Repeat with the yellow and blue food coloring. If you want the color to be brighter, add more food coloring. These colors are known as primary colors. 2. Fill a well in the ice cube tray with red water, one with blue water and one with yellow water. 3. Next, create secondary colors by mixing the primary colors. Spoon combinations of red, blue and yellow water into new wells to create colors. Mix yellow and red to create orange, yellow and blue to make green, and blue and red to create purple. 4. Continue mixing colors until you have all the colors you need for painting. Lean a craft stick in each well and place the tray in the freezer. 5. Once the water is frozen, remove the ice from the tray. Use the ice paint to draw on the sketch paper.