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Description

Scouts to create own hand warmers and test them out in the microwave to see how warm they stay for. Experiment for the scouts scientist badge.

https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/make-diy-hand-warmers/

What's the science?
The microwave shoots out a bunch of microwaves, which are tiny beams of energy.
The microwaves transfer their energy to the rice, heating it up.
Because we added lots of rice, the hand warmers can stay warm for a long time, just like penguins huddling together to stay warm.
Once the rice runs out of energy and gets cold, we can put it back in the microwave to heat up all over again.

Resources

Clean socks
uncooked rice
Coloured fabric pens or permanent markers
zip ties
microwave

Instructions

1) Each person needs to take one sock and decorate it with coloured fabric pens or permanent markers. You could write your name, or you could choose to draw some pictures. When finished the socks will be tied from around the middle, so keep this in mind when decorating.
2) Add 3 large tablespoons of uncooked rice into your decorated sock, and make sure it goes all the way to the bottom.
3) Tie a knot in the sock, making the knot as close to the top of the rice as you can. You want to have a ball of rice in the toe end of the sock, with the knot ensuring that the rice can’t fall out.
4) Pop the sock into the microwave for 30 seconds, and then carefully take it out as it will be hot. You will need an adult to supervise this part of the activity, and you might want to use a tea towel or oven gloves to help get the socks out of the microwave.
5) Your hand warmer is finished! Pop it in your coat pocket to help keep your hands nice and warm.

Rice or wrong?
1) You’ve made your hand warmers and understand the science behind them, now it’s time to do some tests.
2) Check out Experiment development to design your own science experiments to test out your new hand warmers.
3) You could try heating the hand warmers up for longer and see how long they stay warm for, you could try making the hand warmers bigger or smaller, or you could try out different materials, such as dried beans or lentils.
4) Once you have finished your experiments, look at Share the science to find out about sharing what you’ve learnt.

Tags

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Badge Links

• Scientist - Other
• Skills - Creative