We had a challenge this week and we used the TASC wheel and the thinking hats to help us to develop our ideas, share our thoughts and feelings and use our knowledge and understanding to solve the problem.

How will we get the polar bear out of the ice quickly?

We talked together and used the thinking mat to develop our ideas and questions.

We generated our own ideas and thought about bashing the ice with tools, using a hairdryer and one child suggested wrapping the ice up in a sleeping bag. We were then able to talk to our friends and magpie ideas before we move on to thinking about ideas and using black hat to think of problems. Lots of us were concerned for the polar bear, hitting the ice would scare, we also wondered if we could lift the ice block into a sleeping bag?

We decided to carry out a test and choose three different ways to melt the ice-
1. Using hot water
2. Using salt
3. Putting it on a radiator

We talked about it being a fair test and decided that we should-
* Use three plastic bowls that were the same
*Use the same amount of ice cubes (3 in each pot)
*Check the ice cubes after the same amount of time
*Use the same amount of hot water and salt

After 5 minutes we check all three bowls and the ice cubes that had been in the hot water melted the quickest.

We must use hot water to get the polar bear out of the ice.

BUT...

What if the polar bear was real and stuck in  ice in a polar region?
Could we use hot water then?

Lots of children really thought about this and decided they would not be able to get hot water so would use salt as it also melted the ice, it just took a bit longer. They would be able too carry bags on snowmobiles or sleds.