The Ice Age and Glaciers

booksIt can be difficult to find any information on the Ice Age from a Christian perspective.

I ended up buying “Life in the Great Ice Age” by Michael and Beverly Oard.

insidebookIt follows a young boy growing up at the end of the Ice Age from a biblical point of view.

It was such an amazing resource!

We leaned heavily on the Answers in Genesis site also.

glacierI did some searches for “Glaciers for kids” and came up with some interesting projects.

I cannot find the source for this one but it was a great idea.

You take a piece of ice(you can make some with bits of rocks and sand in them also) and slowly press it down and over on playdough.

Mimicking a glaciers movement.

movingWe read about what makes a glacier a glacier first and then did this project.

trailAfter we had done this we looked at pictures of valleys made from glaciers.

It was so much easier for them to see how the glacier could have carved it out after doing it for themselves!

Since my husband and I just went to Glacier National Park in September, I used many of my own pictures to talk about glaciers.

materialsThe boys were really fascinated with the cave paintings in the book so after reading what materials they used to make their paint we decided to try it for ourselves.

crushingWe used, egg white, orange juice, and coals from our fire.

crushing2The boys took turns crushing the coals into a powder.

makingpaintThen we mixed it all together.

cavepaint caveartThey tried to use pieces of grass to draw with but had better luck with paint brushes.

airblownMy oldest was really fascinated with the hand prints on the cave walls so we tried to recreate air brushing.

We used just plain straws but the boys are not good at keeping suction so most of the paint would come out and I think the opening needed to be smaller for it to spray.

sprayThey still had fun though and got the idea.

sprayerWe broke out the big guns and used a sidewalk chalk sprayer someone had given us a while ago.

handSuccess!

We studied the effects of ash clouds from Volcanoes also.

“Life in the Great Ice Age” had given that as one of their theories as to why the earth would have been cooler then.

There is a lot of evidence of increased volcanic activity during that time.

There is a lot of information and videos out there about that since we just had that big ash cloud in 2010 from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull.

Just looking at the pictures of how dark it was and how bad visibility was really helped that time period come alive.

hotAnother theory they brought up was that the ocean temperatures would have risen due to the waters from the deep coming up during the flood.

That would have caused an increase in evaporation and more rain or snow.

The colder temps with the increased snowfall would have caused more glaciers to form.

After reading that I asked the boys if warmer water evaporates faster than cooler water.

Since they were not sure we did an experiment.

I put two cups of water in a pot on the stove to heat on low and another two cups of cold just sitting out at room temp.

We than checked the amount in each every hour.

It was really easy for them to see that the hot water was evaporating very quickly.

I really enjoyed this study and learned so much!

Multi-Use Trail ~Edmond, OK

CentrailStateMultiUseTrailThere are several places to access the Multi-Use Trail on Arcadia Lake in Edmond.

Spring Creek Park, Edmond Park, Central State Park, or the Park Office.

All of these entrances do have a fee though.

I have read that the park office is the cheapest.

dryIt is a really nice resource for those that live in the area.

juniperThe Juniper trees were loaded!

trailNice easy paths.

reddirtRed dirt with a lot of bike tracks.

sign creek We started at Central State Park and headed towards Spring Creek Park.

I wanted to start at Edmond Park but it was closed for the season.

us

It is a nice trail but since there is a fee and a lot of the trail follows the road closely, it is not worth the travel time to me.

If you live in the area though you should check it out.