- Di­a­pers (they con­tain sodi­um poly­acry­late, a chem­i­cal com­pound that ef­fec­tive­ly ab­sorbs liq­uid – and that’s ex­act­ly what you’ll need for this ex­per­i­ment);
- A glass of wa­ter
- An emp­ty glass or con­tain­er.

1. Cut open some di­a­pers and pour the con­tents (sodi­um poly­acry­late gran­ules) into a clean glass.

2. Pour some wa­ter into an­oth­er clean glass (ap­prox­i­mate­ly 100 mL of wa­ter per 2–3 grams of gran­ules).

3. Add the wa­ter to the sodi­um poly­acry­late gran­ules.

4. Watch the sub­stance ab­sorb wa­ter and swell, sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creas­ing in size and form­ing “snowflakes”!

The ab­sorb­ing sub­stance in di­a­pers is sodi­um poly­acry­late in gran­ule form. It can ab­sorb tremen­dous amounts of liq­uid — hun­dreds of times its own mass! Wa­ter pen­e­trates into the poly­acry­late gran­ules, and oc­cu­pies so much space in­side these gran­ules that they have to swell to ac­com­mo­date it, turn­ing into “snow.” Pre­cise­ly what you need for your Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions! But be­ware, if you add too much wa­ter, it will turn into a jel­ly­like mass in­stead of “snow.” Just a note: with time, this “snow” may start los­ing shape as the wa­ter grad­u­al­ly evap­o­rates. You can, how­ev­er, re­store its shape – just add a bit more wa­ter! Store this ar­ti­fi­cial snow in an air­tight con­tain­er. This snow isn’t ed­i­ble! Make sure to wash your hands af­ter play­ing with it.

- 3 tsp ta­ble salt
- 3 tsp yel­low prus­si­ate of potash so­lu­tion
- liq­uid soap
- boil­ing wa­ter
- glass
- construction pa­per Christ­mas tree
- Petri dish or saucer

1. Pour 3 tsp of ta­ble salt into a glass.

 2. Add 3 tsp 0.3M so­lu­tion of yel­low prus­si­ate of potash.

 3. Add some boil­ing wa­ter.

 4. Stir. Pour the re­sult­ing mix­ture into a Petri dish or saucer and add a few drops of liq­uid soap.

 5. Place a pa­per Christ­mas tree in the cen­ter of the con­tain­er. It’s im­por­tant that the pa­per be of the right con­sis­ten­cy to ab­sorb wa­ter well with­out de­form­ing.

 6. Wait 12 hours. Do not move or jos­tle the Christ­mas tree while the crys­tals are grow­ing. Af­ter 12 hours, the Christ­mas tree will be cov­ered in "snow!”

 The hot so­lu­tion we poured into the Petri dish con­tains a lot of dis­solved sodi­um chlo­ride NaCl. Ac­tu­al­ly, it con­tains a greater quan­ti­ty of salt than room-tem­per­a­ture wa­ter can hold. Con­se­quent­ly, when the sys­tem cools, the sodi­um chlo­ride pre­cip­i­tates out of the so­lu­tion in the form of tiny, fluffy crys­tals. These crys­tals ap­pear on the tree thanks to the cap­il­lary ef­fect. First, the so­lu­tion soaks through prac­ti­cal­ly the en­tire­ty of the pa­per tree. Then, as the wa­ter grad­u­al­ly evap­o­rates from the sur­face of the pa­per, the salt grad­u­al­ly set­tles on it. But how did we ob­tain such fluffy salt crys­tals? Salt crys­tals are usu­al­ly cu­bic, right? This is most­ly due to the ad­di­tion of potas­si­um hex­a­cyano­fer­rate and the way the crys­tals form on the pa­per tree.

- Car­bamide, or urea ((NH2)2CO) – 300 g
- Wa­ter (H2O) – 50 mL
- A glass
- A small piece of glass
- A paint­brush.

1. Pour 300 g of car­bamide into a glass.

2. Add 50 mL of hot wa­ter and mix thor­ough­ly. The car­bamide will start dis­solv­ing in the wa­ter, but won’t dis­solve com­plete­ly be­cause there is too much of it)

3. Dip a paint­brush into the so­lu­tion: Take a piece of glass and make sev­er­al strokes with the paint­brush to ap­ply the so­lu­tion to the glass

4. Wait for sev­er­al min­utes — soon you’ll see frost­work pat­terns ap­pear­ing on the glass!

 Where do these “frost­work” pat­terns come from? Car­bamide read­i­ly dis­solves in cold wa­ter, and does so even bet­ter in hot wa­ter. If you de­posit a small quan­ti­ty of hot car­bamide so­lu­tion on a piece of glass, it will form whim­si­cal crys­tals. Once the so­lu­tion starts to cool down on the glass, car­bamide has no choice but to crys­tal­lize as the wa­ter cools too much for all the car­bamide to stay dis­solved. Nee­dle-like crys­tals grow on the wet glass sur­face, cre­at­ing fas­ci­nat­ing, unique pat­terns. They look like real frost­work!

 Make sure to wear pro­tec­tive gloves when con­duct­ing this ex­per­i­ment. The frost­work pat­tern you cre­ate is easy to re­move from the glass – sim­ply rinse it with wa­ter.

- Cal­ci­um ni­trate
- Graphite dust
- Beaker with wa­ter
- Wood­en stick
- Paint­brush
- LEDs
- 9 V bat­tery
-Croc­o­dile clips.

1. Pre­pare an aque­ous so­lu­tion of cal­ci­um ni­trate in a beaker and add some graphite dust to cre­ate elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive ink.

2. Use this ink to draw a snowflake.

3. Con­nect a 9 V bat­tery to the snowflake with croc­o­dile clips and put LEDs on the graphite lines to cre­ate a com­plete cir­cuit – the LEDs light up!

 Graphite has a spe­cial struc­ture con­sist­ing of flat lay­ers of car­bon. Elec­tric cur­rent can flow along these lay­ers. Adding an elec­trolyte so­lu­tion to its pow­der makes elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive ink. An elec­trolyte is a sub­stance that dis­so­ci­ates into charged par­ti­cles (ions) in an aque­ous so­lu­tion, and there­fore can also con­duct elec­tric cur­rent. Cal­ci­um ni­trate is a per­fect ex­am­ple. The elec­trolyte so­lu­tion helps elec­trons move from one par­ti­cle of graphite to the next. Thus, a thick mass is ob­tained, which you can use to make real liq­uid "wires" in an elec­tri­cal­ly con­duc­tive pat­tern! 

- White paint or gouache
- Water
- Glass
- Baking soda
- Citric acid

1. Mix white gouache or paint with water

2. Pour it into a glass, and then gently pour baby oil or vegetable oil over the water layer.

3. To activate the "snowfall," sprinkle in baking soda and citric acid, which will create a bubbling effect that makes the tinted water rise and fall like a snowstorm.

4. Watch the snow globe effect: The citric acid and baking soda will react, creating carbon dioxide bubbles that will rise through the oil, carrying droplets of the colored water with them, creating a "snowstorm" effect.