How Much Water in Snow?
Level: Grades 3-8 Subject: Water action and processes Skills: measurement, calculation Duration: 60 minutes Group size: any Setting: outdoors/indoors Key vocabulary: moisture content, ratio Objectives: The student will be able to: 1. Determine the volume of water in a given amount of snow. 2. Calculate a ratio for water volume per snow volume .(moisture content). Method: The students will collect a known volume of snow, melt it on a hot plate, measure the volume of water and calculate the amount of water to snow. Materials: five metric measuring cups (or 2-cup measuring cup) five 1 lb. coffee cans snow hot plate Overview Is snow depth the same as the amount of water in the snow? The answer is no because the snow has pore spaces and because the density of ice is less than water. On an average, new snow has a moisture content of 0.1. In other words, 10 square cm of snow contains 1 square cm of water (actual values may vary from 0.1-0.7). To calculate the moisture content, divide the volu
