Blubber Glove

You will need:

  1. Four waterproof plastic bags, big enough to get your hand in, eg freezer bags. (Or you can use rubber/latex gloves, check no-one’s allergic though.)
  2. Parcel tape
  3. A big bowl of ice and water - good and ch-ch-chilly
  4. A few packs of solid vegetable fat, at room temperature
  5. A spoon (unless you really want to get your hands dirty!)

What to do:

1. Cut the tops off two of the plastic bags if they have any handles or flaps and place one inside the other.

2. Start to fill the gap between the bags with vegetable fat. Mmmmmn - nice!

3. Once the gap is filled with about 2cm of fat all around, seal the gap between the bags with parcel tape leaving the inner bag open so you put your hand in it. You've now made your blubber glove.

4. Put one hand inside the blubber glove. Squodge the fat around as necessary so as to cover your hand completely.

5. Put your other hand inside the two other plastic bags. Now dip both hands into the icy water. Which one do you have to pull out first? Don't leave either in there too long as they will start to hurt!

What's going on?

You should notice that you can keep your blubber-gloved hand in the bowl of ice much longer than the hand protected only by the plastic bags. This is because the fat acts as an insulator, keeping the heat inside and not letting it pass through to the icy water. In the wild, many sea animals have a thick layer of blubber to protect them from the cold.