🧪 Science as a Journey of Discovery

Something wonderful happens in the science laboratory: children travel for a while into a different reality.

This week, we talked about changes in the physical states of matter. Ice becomes water, and water becomes vapor. A familiar journey. But nature also has its exceptions. Carbon dioxide (CO₂), the gas that creates the bubbles in sparkling water, becomes “dry ice” at very low temperatures. When heated, it changes directly from a solid to a gas without becoming a liquid.

We placed dry ice into warm water, and the room quickly filled with a thick white “cloud.” It’s not magic! It’s science. Yet, in the eyes of the children, it feels like a journey of discovery.

And now, a little secret: that cloud is not CO₂. It is the moisture in the air condensing due to the sudden cooling. In a completely dry environment, we wouldn’t see anything at all.

But we don’t need to tell them that…🤫
We will let the question arise within them. Maybe next year. Maybe in five or ten years. Maybe never. And that’s okay. Because sometimes it is more important to risk them never learning it than to hand them the answer ready-made.

This, in a few words, is science at Big Bang School.