First day of school! Easing into the new school year by consolidating these fun items about Water 💦
21 facts about water
- When ice freezes, its volume increases. This makes ice less dense than water, which is why ice floats on water. This is why glass is not used when freezing water, because the increased volume may cause the glass to break.
- When ice melts, it is gaining heat. However, the heat is used to help the particles in ice to break away from one another. Thus, the temperature of melting ice remains at zero degree Celsius, until all the ice has turned into water.
- If we need a quick fix to get wrinkles out of our clothes, place some ice cubes in the dryer along with one or two items of clothing, then turn on the hottest setting. The ice will melt and turn to steam, which straightens out the creases within 10 mins. This trick is most effective for light fabrics.
- In the case of a fever, use a wet towel instead of a dry towel. The water in the wet towel will evaporate and gain more heat from the sick person compared to a dry towel.
- Water vapour in the surrounding air comes into contact with the cooler air around the box, loses heat and condenses to form tiny water droplets.
- Clouds are typically made of tiny water droplets. However, in winter, since the entire atmosphere’s temperature is very low, the ice crystals in clouds fall and encounter cold air. As the ice crystals collide with one another and more water vapour condenses on them, snowflakes are formed.
- The tiny water droplets gained heat from the warmer surrounding air and evaporated to form water vapour.
- Take out ice cubes from the freezer. Observe ‘white mist’ above them. The ‘white mist’ are tiny water droplets.
- A bespectacled person eats a bowl of hot noodles. His spectacle lens fog up. Water vapour in the surrounding air has condensed into tiny water droplets on the glasses.
- Some people use a misting fan equipped with nozzles. The nozzles release mist which is circulated by the wind produced by the fan. This mist cools the surroundings. It does so by gaining heat from the surrounding air and evaporating. Hence, the surrounding air loses heat and cools down.
- Another electrical appliance is the clothes dryer that is used to tumble wet clothes dry. It has a heater that heats the tumbler and the air within the dryer, which in turn heats up the wet clothes. As the rotating tumbler tosses and tumbles the wet clothes around, the exposed surface area of the wet clothes to the surrounding hot air increases and water in the clothes gains heat and evaporates faster.
- Fill up a bottle with water and place it in the water tank in the toilet. The bottle of water sinks in the water tank and takes up space, leaving less space in the rank for less water to fill the tank to flush the toilet.
- Sand stones can be used to trap solid particles to filter the river water. However, the water may contain bacteria which can pass through the sand and stones as they are too small to be filtered by them.
- Placing water thimbles in taps helps save water as it creates a stronger water stream without increasing its flow rate.
- Singapore is a humid country. This means that there is a lot of water vapour in the air. Thus, it is more difficult for water to evaporate. That’s why we feel much hotter when the humidity is high, because our perspiration doesn’t evaporate easily.
- When we come out of the water, our body will be wet. The water gains heat from our body to evaporate into water vapour. Thus, our body loses heat to the cold water and we will feel cold.
- We sweat because the sweat glands located under the skin secrete water or sweat to cool the body when it evaporates.
- Cats keep themselves cool by locking themselves. The saliva evaporates, producing a cooling effect.
- Did you know that 22 March is World Water Day to advocate the importance of fresh water?
- Some organisms have structural adaptations to help them survive in hot environments. The kangaroo rats are able to carry out special life processes that allow them to get all the water they need from the dry seeds they eat. They also don’t urinate at all. As for camels, they can drink more than 100 litres of water when they are available and then go for a long period without drinking. Camels also sweat and urinate very little.
- Desalination is the process used to obtain fresh water from seawater. Seawater is heated and the water vapour formed is condensed into fresh water, thus removing the salt.