Snowflakes and angels give the title. Heavenly messengers. Nature is a mistress of surprise, and snowflakes can rightly be called one of her wonderful creations. How do snowflakes appear

Let's talk about snow. More precisely, about the beautiful and perfect creation of nature - a snowflake. Snowflake fluffy and prickly, sparkling and shining, mysterious and unique. And also about those who discerned and discovered for us the beauty hidden by nature in the familiar and ordinary and tried to measure and capture it.

Many interesting, unusual, sometimes stunning facts are known, one way or another concerning snow and snowflakes. Most people would say that snow is a physical phenomenon resulting from the crystallization of water in the air. This is certainly true, but snow is also a whole world consisting of many creatures - snowflakes. Their diversity is amazing. The snowflake is so beautiful, but elusive. Stretch your hand to her, and she will disappear, turning into a drop of water. For how many years people have been trying to unravel the mysteries of snowflakes, and there is no certainty that all of them have been solved. Struck by the extremely complex shape, perfect symmetry and endless variety of snowflakes, people from ancient times associated their outlines with the action of supernatural forces or divine providence. They admire snowflakes, study them, sing songs about them and write poems. Everything about snowflakes is interesting - both their geometry and physical properties, and creating models of snowflakes. Snowflakes are called "cold perfection". And according to legend, snowflakes are the wings of angels that fell from the sky.

So what is snow and snowflake?

Snow is solid precipitation in the form of crystals (snowflakes). There is an exceptionally wide variety of snowflake shapes. The simplest of them: needles, columns and plates. In addition, there are numerous complicated forms of snowflakes: needle stars; lamellar stars; hedgehogs, consisting of several columns; columns with plates and stars at the ends. Some forms of columns have internal cavities or form the appearance of glasses; there are also 12-beam stars. The sizes of individual snowflakes can be very different. Needle stars usually have the largest linear dimensions (their radius reaches 4-5 mm).
Snowflakes often connect with each other and fall out in the form of flakes. The size of the flakes can reach a very large size; flakes with a radius of up to 15-20 cm were observed.

Snowflake- a more general term; it can mean either an individual snow crystal, or several snow crystals that stick together, or large clusters of snow crystals that form the snow that falls from the clouds.

Snowflakes have repeatedly become the subject of serious scientific research. As you know, it is almost impossible to find a pair of completely identical snowflakes, although they can be very similar to each other. This is one of those centuries-old secrets that the process of computer simulation will help to unravel.

But the famous astronomer and mathematician, one of those who formulated the laws of planetary motion, Johannes Kepler, who lived four centuries ago, dedicated his famous playful treatise "New Year's Gift, or about Hexagonal Snow" to the snowflake. Treating his work with a fair amount of humor, he at the same time scrupulously, like a true scientist, explored many interesting features of snowflakes. Including the question why, in fact, snowflakes are "hexagonal, fluffy, like feathers with six rays." And three centuries later, albums were published in which collections of enlarged photographs of thousands of snowflakes are presented, and none of them repeats the other, thereby laying the foundations of crystallography.

In 1635 the French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes began describing the types of snowflakes, examining them with the naked eye. He wrote that snowflakes look like roses, lilies and wheels with six teeth. He was particularly struck by the "tiny white dot" he found in the middle of the snowflake, as if it were the trace of the leg of a compass, which was used to outline its circumference. Descartes also found and described for the first time a fairly rare twelve-pointed snowflake. Until now, a twelve-pointed snowflake is considered a rarity, so it is not completely clear where and under what conditions it is formed. It is believed that snowflakes with 4, 5 and 8 faces do not exist, but you can see with three.

The first photographs of a snow crystal under a microscope were taken in 1885 by an American farmer. Wilson Bentley.

Having photographed more than five thousand snow crystals in his life, he came to the conclusion that none of them are the same. In 1931, his famous book "Snow Crystals" was published.

Snow formation
Snow forms when microscopic water droplets in clouds are attracted to dust particles and freeze. The ice crystals that appear in this case, which at first do not exceed 0.1 mm in diameter, fall down and grow as a result of condensation of moisture from the air on them. In this case, six-pointed crystalline forms are formed. Due to the structure of water molecules, only 60° and 120° angles are possible between the rays of the crystal. The main water crystal has the shape of a regular hexagon in the plane. New crystals are then deposited on the vertices of such a hexagon, new ones are deposited on them, and in this way a variety of crystals are obtained. different forms snowflake stars.
Crystals repeatedly move vertically in the atmosphere, partially melting and crystallizing again, so mixed forms are formed. Crystallization of all six rays occurs at the same time, under almost identical conditions, and therefore the features of the shape of the snowflake rays are equally identical.

The white color comes from the air contained in the snowflake. Light of various frequencies is reflected on the boundary surfaces between the crystals and the air and scattered. Snowflakes are 95% air, which causes a low density and a relatively slow fall velocity (0.9 km/h).

Dimensions
The largest snowflake was witnessed on January 28, 1887 during a snowfall in Fort Keo, Montana, USA; it had a diameter of 15 inches (about 38 cm). Usually, snowflakes are about 5 mm in diameter with a mass of 0.004 g.

Variety of snowflakes
There is such a variety of snowflakes that it is generally believed that no two snowflakes are the same. For example, Kenneth Liebrecht- the author of the largest and most diverse collection of snowflakes - says: "All snowflakes are different, and their placement in groups (classification) is largely a matter of personal preference."

Simple snowflakes, such as prisms formed at low humidity, may look the same, although molecular level they differ. Complex star-shaped snowflakes have a unique, visually distinguishable geometric shape.
In order for the structure of a snowflake to be clearly visible in a photograph (and this is very important for studying its crystalline structure), the sample is illuminated in a special way, and the snowflake itself works like a complex lens. Liebrecht developed a special camera with a built-in microscope for "field" research. You need to photograph snowflakes very quickly - when a snowflake descends from the sky, its crystals stop growing and almost immediately begin to lose their clarity of edges.

And variants of such forms, according to the physicist John Nelson from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, more than there are atoms in the observable universe.

snowflake movement
Snowflakes are lighter than raindrops because they are made of crystals. However, snow flakes are not as light as they seem. If this were the case, they would not fall to the ground, but would remain in the clouds. They fall because they are made of ice crystals that have become too heavy to be held in the clouds. Snowflakes flutter as the crystals are large and, like parachutes, rest on the air in flight. If you look at them through a magnifying glass, you can see intertwining crystals. Crystals are very diverse, and their shape is more complex and beautiful, the colder the weather.

Types of snowflakes
Many modern scientists are inclined to believe that there are no more than 130 types of snowflakes in nature - that is how many configurations in different axes of symmetry a hexagonal snowflake can form. But the international classification system recognizes only 10 species.
In 1951, the International Commission on Snow and Ice adopted a classification for solid precipitation. According to her All snow crystals can be divided into the following groups: stellate dendrites, plates, columns, needles, spatial dendrites, columns with a tip and irregular shapes. Three more types of icy precipitation were added to them: small snow grains, ice grains and hail.

stellate dendrites- a crystal or other formation having a tree-like, branching structure. They have six symmetrical main branches and many randomly arranged branches. Their size is 5 mm or more in diameter, as a rule, they are flat and thin - only 0.1 mm. Records- a lot of ice ribs seem to divide the blades of snowflakes into sectors. Like stellate dendrites, they are flat and thin. columns. Although flat, lamellar snowflakes are more eye-catching, the most common form of snow crystals is the column or column. Such hollow columns can be hexagonal, in the form of a pencil, pointed at the ends in the form of a cone. Needles- columnar crystals grown long and thin. Sometimes cavities remain inside them, and sometimes the ends split into several branches. Spatial dendrites. Very interesting configurations are obtained when flat or columnar crystals grow together or are compressed, forming three-dimensional structures, where each branch is located in its own plane. Poles with tips. Initially, such crystals have a columnar shape, but as a result of some processes they change the direction of growth, turning into plates. This can happen if the crystal is blown into a zone with a different temperature by the wind. Crystals of irregular shape. A snowflake can have many adventures, it can get into a zone of turbulence and lose some of its branches in it or break completely. Usually there are many such "crippled" snowflakes in wet snow; at relatively high temperatures, especially in strong winds.

Laboratory experiments on growing snowflakes have shown that the shape of snowflakes directly depends on temperature and humidity.
Plates form at -2°C, columns at -5°C, plates reappear around -15°C, and combinations of plates and columns at -30°C. In addition, snow crystals tend to form simpler shapes at low humidity and more difficult at high. The most bizarre forms - long needles are formed at -5° C, and large thin plates are formed at -15° C and relatively high humidity.

And what about in the center?
Scientists from France and the United States have found that snowflakes are formed due to bacteria. Scientists led by Brent Christner of Louisiana State University studied snow samples from France, Antarctica, Montana and Yukon. Their goal was to search for nuclei or centers of crystallization of snowflakes. The core of crystallization is where the formation of snowflakes begins. Previously, it was believed that this role is played by dust particles, on which supersaturated water vapor freezes. !?! The researchers found that between 69 and 100 percent of the crystallization nuclei in the studied samples were organic origin. An essential part biological nuclei of crystallization were bacteria.
Most of the snowflakes are formed with the participation of bacteria in France, followed by Montana and Yukon. In the Arctic snow samples, the fewest bacterial crystallization centers were found. Colored snow?
There are cases when blue, green, gray or black snow fell from the sky. So, on Christmas Day 1969, black snow fell on 16,000 square miles of Swedish territory. Most likely, this happened as a result of emissions industrial waste to the air.
In 1955, phosphorescent green snow fell near Dana, California. Some residents decided to try his flakes and soon died, the hands of those who dared only take it in their hands became covered with a rash, accompanied by severe itching. This phenomenon still creates controversy about the origin of snow. In the meantime, it is believed that the toxic fallout was the result of atomic tests in Nevada.
Once upon a time, winters were snowless - just very cold. The frozen earth was peacefully waiting for the summer to give life again to plants, ready at any moment to reach for the gentle rays of the sun ... And Winter looked at her possessions from a high castle, enjoying the serene calmness, frozen air and sleeping trees. Winter had a son, whose name was Snow. The boy was naughty and curious. One day, when Autumn was leaving to hand over power to his mother, Snow saw that somewhere far below a small fire was burning in the freezing desert. Not having received permission, the boy ran away from his mother's castle to see what was there, far below, glowing so brightly and unusually. When he came to where he saw a bright light, Snow realized that flowers were freezing in the field, the buds of which were still burning with beautiful buds. He asked them, "Why don't you hide?" In response, the flowers only shook their bright heads and answered that their fate was to freeze together with the first frosts ... And in the spring, new flowers will come in their place, which will once again decorate the earth ... The snow was very hurt that such beautiful creatures were forced to die, suffering from frost. But the boy could not do anything. He returned home and told his mother about it, but she only answered her son that this is the order - and for many centuries the plants fall asleep forever to give life to others ... The boy sat down on the threshold of his cold castle and wept. And his tears, picked up by the wind, froze in the cold and fell to the ground as snow, covering the grasses and flowers with a warm snow-white blanket. Since then, snow has fallen every winter, saving the flowers from severe frosts, and in the spring, when the boy’s frozen tears melt, the first flowers wake up from under the cozy blanket, bowing to the boy for care with their clean bells, and call them snowdrops.

Rachkovsky Semyon Viktorovich

This article is about snow. More precisely, about the beautiful and perfect creation of nature - a snowflake. Snowflake fluffy and prickly, sparkling and shining, mysterious and unique. And it also tells about those who saw and discovered for us in the familiar and ordinary the beauty hidden by nature and tried to measure and capture it. Many interesting, unusual, sometimes stunning facts are known, one way or another concerning snow and snowflakes. Most people would say that snow is a physical phenomenon resulting from the crystallization of water in the air. This is certainly true, but snow is also a whole world consisting of many creatures - snowflakes. Their diversity is amazing. The snowflake is so beautiful, but elusive. Stretch your hand to her, and she will disappear, turning into a drop of water. For how many years people have been trying to unravel the mysteries of snowflakes, and there is no certainty that all of them have been solved. Struck by the extremely complex shape, perfect symmetry and endless variety of snowflakes, people from ancient times associated their outlines with the action of supernatural forces or divine providence. They admire snowflakes, study them, sing songs about them and write poems. Everything about snowflakes is interesting - their geometry, physical properties, and the creation of snowflake models. Snowflakes are called "cold perfection". And according to legend, snowflakes are the wings of angels that fell from the sky.

Download:

Preview:

Topic: "Snowflakes - the wings of angels that fell from heaven ..."

Place of work: MOU secondary school No. 9, 3rd grade, Irkutsk region, Ust-Kut

Scientific adviser:Fedotova Irina Vitalievna

2010

1. Introduction.

2. Snowflakes - the wings of angels that fell from heaven:

History of the study of snowflakes;
Conditions for the birth of snowflakes;
Snowflake geometry;
Types of snowflakes;
Physics of snow.

3. Entertaining and informative about snow and snowflake.

Do you know that…;
Snow tales;
Snegurochka - a girl from the snow;
"Lantern for admiring the snow";
Excursion to the museum of snowflakes.
"Summer Snow Festival"

4. Small miracle with your own hands.

Snowflake in 3D format;
Quilling.
How to cut a beautiful snowflake;

5. Conclusion.

Introduction.

"Nature is so about everything

Made sure that everywhere

You find something to learn."

Leonardo Da Vinci

Snow is a great miracle of nature.The legend about the very first snow tells that the Rebellious Angels at the moment of the fall lost their snow-white wings, which covered the earth with a white shiny carpet. So snow appeared, and the first winter came.

When It is snowing This spectacle leaves no one indifferent. For some, the falling snow pleases, gives high spirits, while for others, on the contrary, it evokes sadness and sadness. Thanks to snow, every year we admire fabulous winter landscapes, but we love snow not only for this. Snow reserves affect the crop, the water level in the rivers. Building from snow winter roads and even airports. But we do not even think about this useful role of snow. Snow for us is first of all a FAIRY TALE. Have you noticed that various monsters, mythical and fabulous, can live anywhere, but man has not settled them in the snow? But snow inspired a great many fairy tales to man.

The most amazing thing about snowflakes is that none of them repeats the other. Astronomer Johannes Kepler in his treatise "New Year's gift. About hexagonal snowflakes ”explained the shape of the crystals by the will of God.If you live in cold climes, you know about winter firsthand, then you have at least one reason to be proud of it: unlike residents of hot countries, you can admire snowflakes in vivo. Believe me, it is very interesting to look at snowflakes, if only because two identical ones have never fallen to the ground.

GOAL OF THE WORK:

Familiarize yourself with the conditions for the birth of snowflakes;
Consider the division of snowflakes according to shape;
To get acquainted with the geometry and physics of snowflakes;
Learn myths, riddles, proverbs and sayings about snow;
Consider making unusual paper snowflakes.

THIS WORK CAN BE USED:

As additional material at the lessons of the "World around" in the 3rd grade;
At the lessons of natural history in the 5th grade;
At the lessons of visual geometry;
As material for messages;
In additional and optional classes for younger students.

"Snowflakes are the wings of angels that have fallen from heaven..."

The history of the study of snowflakes.

It is difficult to say when a person first admired this miracle of nature. The forms of snowflakes are unusually diverse - there are more than five thousand of their variations.

Year	Personality	What was observed
1550	Archbishop Olaf Magnus of Uppsala, Sweden	For the first time I observed snowflakes with the naked eye.
1611	Johannes Kepler, German astronomer and mathematician.
1635	French mathematician Rene Descartes	Wrote "Study on the shape of snowflakes", observed a 12-ray snowflake
17th century	Robert Hooke	Concluded about six-pointed symmetry in the geometry of snowflakes
17th century	Donat Rosetti, Italian priest and mathematician	The first to classify snowflakes
17th century	William Scoresby, English whaler	first described snow crystals in the form of hexagonal pyramids, columns and their combinations
1839	Feudal Ruler of the Country rising sun Toshitsura Onakami Doi	made 97 drawings of "snow flowers".
1885	Wilson Bentley, American farmer Nicknamed "Snowflake"	Got the first successful photo of a snowflake under a microscope
1887	Nikolai Vasilyevich Kaulbars, member of the Russian Geographical Society	First sketched and described a snowflake unusual shape
1939	Ukihiro Nogaya	Carried out a classification, created a museum of ice crystals
1994	Scientists at the University of Tokyo	We started growing artificial snow for the Sapporo Olympics
1951	International Commission on snow and ice	Adopted the classification of snowflakes
2008	Astronomer Kenneth Libbnecht

Conditions for the birth of snowflakes.

Snowflakes develop from small ice crystals that are shaped like hexagons. During very severe frosts (at temperatures below 30 degrees), ice crystals fall out in the form of "diamond dust" - in this case, a layer of very fluffy snow is formed on the surface of the earth, consisting of thin ice needles. Usually, in the course of their movement inside the ice cloud, ice crystals grow due to the direct transition of water vapor into ice. How exactly this growth occurs depends on external conditions, in particular on the temperature and humidity of the air, as shown in the figure:

Under certain conditions, ice hexagons grow intensively along their axis, and then elongated snowflakes form -snowflakes-columns, snowflakes-needles. Under other conditions, hexagons grow mainly in directions perpendicular to their axis, and then snowflakes form in the formhexagonal plates or hexagonal stars. A drop of water can freeze to a falling snowflake - as a result, asnowflake irregular shape.We see, therefore, that the popular belief that snowflakes look like hexagonal stars is erroneous. Moving up and down, they fall into a layer of air with supercooled water droplets. Here, the future snowflake begins to intensively increase in size. In this case, the convex sections of the snowflake grow faster. So, a six-pointed asterisk grows from an originally hexagonal plate. Faced on its way with supercooled droplets, the snowflake is simplified in shape. If it collides with a large drop, it can turn into a small hailstone.

Snowflake geometry.

Look at the snowflake. If you mentally draw a straight line in the middle, it turns out that the right and left parts are the same, relative to the vertical line. This line is called the AXIS OF SYMMETRY. With the phenomenon of symmetry, we often meet in the surrounding life. In addition to mirror symmetry, bodies can also haverotational symmetry. The body has rotational symmetry if, when rotated through the corresponding angle, all parts of the figure are combined with each other. Depending on how many times the figure is aligned with itself during one complete rotation around the axis, the axis of symmetry has a different order (first, second, third, etc.).

Snowflakes have an axis of symmetry of the sixth order. Figures may have morecenter of symmetry. The center of symmetry is a point relative to which any point of a figure has another point corresponding to it, lying at the same distance from the center in the opposite direction. On snowflakes, it is easiest to make sure that the shape of the crystals is correct and symmetrical. The forms of snowflake stars are surprisingly diverse, but their symmetry is always the same: only six rays. Why? A snowflake can only be six-rayed - such is the symmetry of the structure of snow crystals.

The key to the mysterious symmetry of snowflakes lies in the structure of ice. As a result, snowflakes take the form of regular hexagonal prisms with smooth edges. Such prisms fall from the sky at relatively low humidity in a variety of temperature conditions. Sooner or later, bumps appear on the edges. Each bump attracts additional molecules to itself and begins to grow. A snowflake travels through the air for a long time, while the chances of meeting new water molecules at the protruding tubercle are somewhat higher than at the edges. So the rays grow very quickly on the snowflake. One thick beam grows from each face, since molecules do not tolerate emptiness. From the tubercles formed on this ray, branches grow. During the journey of a tiny snowflake, all its faces are in the same conditions, which serves as a prerequisite for the growth of the same rays on all six faces.

Types of snowflakes.

From observations and research conducted by scientists around the world, a collection of more than 5,000 thousand photographs of snowflakes was compiled. It has been revealed that there are ten main types of snowflakes: column snowflakes, needle snowflakes, plate snowflakes, star snowflakes, fern-like dendrites, prisms, space crystals and two of the rarest snowflakes are a triangle and a twelve-pointed star.

"Star"	"Column"	"Plate"

"Triangle"	"Flat"	"Needle"

"Space Crystals"	"Fern Dendrites"	"Twelve Pointed Star"

Physics of snow.

step on fluffy snow on a frosty day. Do you hear? It is the sound of a myriad of crystals breaking. The lower the temperature, the harder and more fragile the snowflakes, and the stronger the crunch underfoot. Can you tell the temperature by hearing the sound of breaking snowflakes?
After all, each temperature has its own creaking tone.

Despite the fact that snowflakes are small, by the end of winter, the mass of snow cover in the northern hemisphere of the planet reaches 13,500 billion tons. Snow reflects up to 90% of sunlight into space.

We are used to seeing white snow. And is he white? The fact is that the complex shape of the ice floes strongly refracts light. As a result, snow reflects white sunlight.

However, there are times when a different color of snow is pronounced for the human eye. So, for example, in the Arctic and mountainous regions, pink or red snow, colored by algae living between its crystals, is considered a common occurrence.

There are cases when blue, green, gray or black snow fell from the sky. So, on Christmas Day 1969, black snow fell on 16,000 square miles of Swedish territory. Most likely, this happened as a result of industrial waste emissions into the air.

In 1955, phosphorescent green snow fell near Dana, California. Some residents decided to try his flakes and soon died, the hands of those who dared only take it in their hands became covered with a rash, accompanied by severe itching. This phenomenon still creates controversy about the origin of snow. In the meantime, it is believed that the toxic fallout was the result of atomic tests in Nevada.

Wet snow in the mountains forms wet avalanches, which have tremendous destructive power and cementing action. Avalanches cause a lot of inconvenience to people, breaking down from the mountains at the most inopportune moment. Usually, avalanches form on slopes with a steepness of 25-45° (however, avalanches are known to descend from slopes with a steepness of 15-18°). On steeper slopes, snow does not accumulate in large quantities and rolls down in small doses as it accumulates. Any avalanches pose a threat, even with a volume of only a few cubic meters.

When the white airy beauties descend to the ground, the fun begins. Under the influence of temperature, wind, relief, snowflakes turn into a wide variety of snow forms. Modern snow researchers have analyzed in detail any state of snowflakes.

The white color of a snowflake is the air enclosed in it. Light of all possible frequencies is reflected on the boundary surfaces between crystals and air and scattered. Since snowflakes are 95% air, this causes a relatively slow fall speed - they fall to the ground at a speed of about a kilometer per hour. The largest snowflake ever recorded was 12 centimeters in diameter. Usually, snowflakes have a diameter of about 5 mm, and the weight of this gentle creature is only 0.004 g. (By the way, it has been verified that when a snowflake falls into water, it creates an extremely high sound, inaudible to humans, but unpleasant for fish).

For lovers of records, we inform you that the largest snowflakes fell on April 30, 1944 in Moscow. Caught in the palm, they covered it almost entirely and resembled beautiful ostrich feathers. Scientists explained this phenomenon as follows: a wave of cold air descended from the area of Franz Josef Land, the temperature dropped, and snowflakes began to form in the clouds. But snowflakes could not immediately fall to the ground: they were held up in the air by warm streams rising from the heated earth. Snowflakes floated in the air layers and stuck together, forming large flakes. The earth cooled down in the evening, the ascending air currents weakened, and an amazing snowfall began.

In the Far North, the snow is so hard that the ax, when struck, rings like it was hit on iron. Such snow polishes the surface of the soil, injures plants. And in Antarctica, a 3-4-meter layer of snow that has fallen in a few days becomes so dense that it is hardly torn open by a heavy knife of a powerful bulldozer.

It is known that even in the air snowflakes are constantly changing. Depending on weather conditions in different places"own" snow falls. In the Baltics and in the central regions, for example, it often snows in the form of large, complexly shaped branched snowflakes, sometimes shaggy flakes.

The snow is slippery because under the pressure and friction of the runners of the sleigh or skis, the surface particles of the snow cover melt, and the film of water that appears in this case serves as a lubricant. The "slipperiness" therefore depends on the temperature of the snow and on the speed of travel.The largest snowflake was recorded on January 28, 1887 in the USA in the state of Montana. It was 38 cm in diameter.

Entertaining and informative about snow and snowflakes.

Do you know that…

1. A snowflake is one of the most fantastic examples of the self-organization of matter from simple to complex.

2. The most amazing thing about snowflakes is that none of them repeats the other. Astronomer Johannes Kepler in his treatise "New Year's gift. About hexagonal snowflakes ”explained the shape of the crystals by the will of God.

3. Snowflakes are absolutely transparent. They only appear white to us due to the refraction of light at the edges of the crystals.

4. In Japanese city Kaga opened the Museum of Snow and Ice, made in the form of three hexagonal buildings.

6. Snowflakes are 95% air, which results in low density and relatively slow falling speed (0.9 km/h).

7. Snow can be eaten. True, the energy consumption for eating snow is many times greater than its calorie content.

8. More than half of the population the globe never seen snow, except in photographs.

9. It turns out that ice is not equally cold. There is very cold ice, with a temperature of about minus 60 degrees, this is the ice of some Antarctic glaciers. The ice of the Greenland glaciers is much warmer. Its temperature is approximately minus 28 degrees. Quite "warm ice" (with a temperature of about 0 degrees) lie on the tops of the Alps and the Scandinavian mountains.

10. A layer of one centimeter of snow packed over the winter gives 25-35 cubic meters of water per 1 ha.

11. The amount of water "conserved" in the glaciers of the globe is 50 times less than the entire mass of ocean waters, and 7 times more than land waters. If the glaciers completely melted, then the level of the world ocean would rise by 800 meters.

12. Two or three icebergs medium size contain a mass of water equal to the annual flow of the Volga (the annual flow of the Volga is 252 cubic kilometers).

13. There are black icebergs. The first press report about them appeared in 1773. The black color of icebergs is caused by the activity of volcanoes - the ice is covered with a thick layer of volcanic dust, which is not even washed off sea water.

14. The US Postal Service issued 4 snowflake stamps in October 2006.

15. There are people who can judge the temperature of the air by the way the snow creaks.

16. US scientists spent $26,400,000 to find out that snowflakes form directly from steam, bypassing the rain stage.

17. Residents of Norway, who call snowmen "white trolls", are not advised to look at the snow creature at night because of the curtain. And if you stumble upon someone else's snowman at night, you should bypass it.

18. The legend of the very first snow - The rebellious angels at the time of the fall lost their snow-white wings, which covered the earth with a white shiny carpet. So snow appeared, and the first winter came.

"Snow Tales"

Everyone, of course, is familiar with fairy tales about snow wizards. In Russian folk tale this is Morozko, and in Andersen's fairy tale - the Snow Queen. Remember how different they are? Morozko is kind and warm-hearted, and fair to the same. He generously endowed the industrious girl, and ridiculed the lazy and envious. The Snow Queen from Andersen's fairy tale appears before us in a completely different way. It is cold and uncomfortable in her ice palace, and the pieces of ice scattered by her around the world pierce into human hearts, and they become callous and evil. Two fairy tales about the rulers of the snow - and they are so different. The snow itself can be just as different. When it snows, this spectacle leaves no one indifferent. For some, the falling snow pleases, gives high spirits, while for others, on the contrary, it evokes sadness and sadness. Thanks to snow, every year we admire fabulous winter landscapes, but we love snow not only for this. Snow reserves affect the crop, the water level in the rivers. Snow is used to build winter roads and even airfields. But we do not even think about this useful role of snow. Snow for us is first of all a FAIRY TALE. Have you noticed that various monsters, mythical and fabulous, can live anywhere, but man has not settled them in the snow? But snow inspired a great many fairy tales to man.Snow and fairy tales have one common feature. Both fairy tales and snow tell us about miraculous TRANSFORMATIONS. As Cinderella turns into a princess, so the dull black field under the fallen snow, as if by magic, turns into a magnificent carpet sparkling in the sun. Snow is one of the amazing phenomena of nature. Its variability is almost mysterious.

Snegurochka - a girl from the snow.

The snow girl who comes to us on New Year's Eve is a unique phenomenon. In no other New Year's mythology, except for Russian, there is a female character! Meanwhile, we ourselves know little about her ... They say she is made of snow ... And melts with love. So, at least, the writer Alexander Ostrovsky introduced the Snow Maiden in 1873, who can be safely considered the foster dad of the ice girl.
The true roots of the relationship of the Snow Maiden go to the pre-Christian mythology of the Slavs. In the northern regions of pagan Rus', there was a custom to make idols from snow and ice. And the image of a revived ice girl is often found in the legends of those times. The parents of the Snow Maiden turned out to be Frost and Spring-Krasna. The girl lived alone, in a dark cold forest, not showing her face to the sun, yearning and reaching out to people. And one day she came out of the thicket to them. According to Ostrovsky's fairy tale, the icy Snow Maiden was distinguished by fearfulness and modesty, but there was not a trace of spiritual coldness in her. But if her heart falls in love and becomes hot, the Snow Maiden will die! She knew this, and yet she made up her mind: she begged from Mother Spring the ability to love passionately. How it looked was demonstrated by the artists Vasnetsov, Vrubel and Roerich. It was thanks to their paintings that we learned that the Snow Maiden wears a pale blue caftan and a cap with an edge, and sometimes a kokoshnik. This was the first time children saw her at the festive tree of 1937 in the Moscow House of Unions.
The Snow Maiden did not come to Santa Claus right away. Although even before the revolution, Christmas trees were decorated with figurines of a snow girl, girls dressed up in costumes of the Snow Maiden. In Soviet Russia, officially celebrating the New Year was allowed only in 1935. Christmas trees began to be set up all over the country and Santa Claus was invited. But suddenly an assistant appeared next to him - a sweet, modest girl with a scythe over her shoulder, dressed in a blue fur coat. First a daughter, then - it is not known why - a granddaughter. The first joint appearance of Father Frost and the Snow Maiden took place in 1937 - since then it has been the custom. The Snow Maiden leads round dances with children, conveys their requests to Grandfather Frost, helps distribute gifts, sings songs and dances with birds and animals.
And the New Year is not the New Year without the glorious assistant of the main wizard of the country.

"Yukimi - tora" - "Lantern for admiring the snow"

In Japanese culture, there is the concept of "yukimi" - "admiring the snow." The Japanese even have such a holiday. Still would! After all, so complex shape, the ideal symmetry and variety of outlines that this amazing creation of nature shows us, people at one time could only associate with the action of supernatural forces or with divine providence.In Japanese gardens, you can find an unusual stone lantern topped with a wide roof with upturned edges. This is Yukimi-Toro, a lantern for admiring the snow. Yukimi Festival is designed to give people the enjoyment of beauty Everyday life. Struck by the extremely complex shape, perfect symmetry and endless variety of snowflakes, people from ancient times associated their outlines with the action of supernatural forces or divine providence.

When the first snow falls, it falls on this lantern, which is illuminated from the inside. They say it is an exceptionally beautiful sight. Japanese culture is always conducive to reflection and reflection. Which actually contributes to the lantern admiring the snow or Yukimi-Toro.

Excursion to the Museum of snowflakes.

In the small Japanese city of Kaga, located on the west coast of the island of Honshu, there are unusual museum. Snow and ice. It was founded by Ukihiro Nakaya, the first person who learned how to grow artificial snowflakes in the laboratory, as beautiful as those that fall from the sky. In this museum, visitors are surrounded on all sides by regular hexagons, because it is precisely this symmetry that is characteristic of crystals. ordinary ice. It determines many of its unique properties and causes snowflakes, with all their endless variety, to grow in the form of stars with six, less often three or twelve rays, but never four or five.In 1932, nuclear physicist Ukihiro Nakaya, a professor at the University of Hokkaido, started growing artificial snow crystals, which made it possible to compile the first classification of snowflakes and reveal the dependence of the size and shape of these formations on air temperature and humidity. In the city of Kaga, located on the western coast of the island of Honshu, there is the Museum of Snow and Ice founded by Ukihiro Nakaya, which now bears his name, is symbolically built in the form of three hexagons. The museum keeps a machine for making snowflakes.The Japanese scientist Nakaya Ukichiro called snow "a letter from heaven, written in secret hieroglyphs." He was the first to create a classification of snowflakes. The only snowflake museum in the world, located on the island of Hokkaido, is named after Nakaya.

"Summer Snow Festival"

Catholics have a summer snowfall holiday.
The holiday is dedicated to the legend, according to which the Virgin Mary indicated the place where Her temple should be erected with the fallen snow.

Santa Maria Maggiore - the most famous church in Rome was built after one of the townspeople in the 4th century. I saw a dream in which the Mother of God appeared, which indicated the right place for laying the temple. Like, build there, where it will snow in the morning. According to legend, the snow fell here. On August 5, on the day of the Feast of the Snow of Mary, white flowers fall from under the dome on the worshipers during mass. A blizzard of a million white roses.

"A small miracle with your own hands." Master class on making snowflakes.

Snowflake in 3D.

To make one snowflake, you will need: 6 square leaves paper the same size, scissors, ruler, pencil, adhesive tape, stapler, thread or other material for hanging a snowflake.

Operating procedure:

Fold each piece of paper diagonally and draw future slots on it along the ruler:	We cut the intended slots and unfold the pieces of paper:
Begin twist the tubes to form paper snowflakes, sealing them tape	The next "frame" of the future paper snowflaketwist it to the other side. We alternate the sides, we get six blocks
In each half of a paper snowflake that we make with our own hands, there will be three such blocks fastened with a stapler	We fasten the halves of the snowflake together, also with a stapler: We also fasten the blocks together, insert a thread for hanging into one of these fasteners:
Snowflakes can be made different colors, textures and sizes, you can vary the number of cuts. It all depends on your requests, the interior and the amount of paper that you do not mind spending on decorating it. It is beautiful to make such snowflakes from colored paper, you can use the existing foil or colored film, and the finished snowflake can be covered with glitter hairspray!	Here is the result:

Quilling.

Quilling, also known as paper rolling, is an art that has been practiced since the Renaissance. The technique is as follows: narrow strips of paper are twisted into rolls, shaped and glued with glue.

A similar type of creativity existed in medieval Europe. At the peak of its popularity, quilling was popular among noble ladies who occupied themselves with it during their leisure hours, and works of this art were often published in women's magazines of that time.

To perform these works, you will need white office paper. It must be cut into strips 5 mm thick along the short side. It is better to cut with a clerical knife along the ruler several sheets at once. For a small amount, you can cut with scissors. You can twist the strips with different tools. You can use an awl, a special slotted rod, a toothpick. To make a snowflake (pendant or applique), you need to prepare a variety of shapes from twisted strips. Forms can be closed, i.e. glued and open, where no glue is used. Both are suitable for applications. And for snowflake pendants, you can use only closed forms.

Scheme of work:

The results are also different:

How to cut a beautiful snowflake.




Result

Conclusion.

If you live in cold climes, you know firsthand about winter, then you have at least one reason to be proud of it: unlike residents of hot countries, you can admire snowflakes in natural conditions. And this is not at all as prosaic as it seems, you just need to dress warmly and go outside, taking with you the most ordinary magnifying glass or magnifying glass. Believe me, it is very interesting to look at snowflakes, if only because two identical ones have never fallen to the ground.
And in general, we advise you to carry a magnifying glass in your coat pocket all winter, because you never know when the most beautiful snowflake will fall from the sky.
Where did the snow come from? The legend says that the rebellious angels lost their snow-white wings at the time of the fall. And so the snow appeared. Do you know that more than half of the world's population has never seen snow? Or seen, but only in photographs.In the Eskimo language, there are more than 20 words for the name of snow, in the Yakut language - about 70.Most snowflakes weigh about a milligram. But billions of snowflakes can affect the speed of the Earth's rotation. When the white airy beauties descend to the ground, the fun begins. Under the influence of temperature, wind, relief, snowflakes turn into a wide variety of snow forms. Round dances begin to circle in snow blizzards, howl together in a snowstorm, wrap houses and roads in fluffy impassable snowdrifts.Struck by the extremely complex shape, perfect symmetry and endless variety of snowflakes, people from ancient times associated their outlines with the action of supernatural forces or divine providence.

While working on the project, I learned a lot of new and interesting things and realized that this is not all the information about snow and snowflakes. The forms of snowflakes are inexhaustible, which means that you can study them endlessly, as well as admire them.

Used literature and sources INTERNET:

Perelman Ya. I. Entertaining tasks and experiments. D.: VAP, 1994.-547 p.
Physics in nature / Tarasov L.V.: Book. for students. – M.: Enlightenment, 1998.- 351 p.: ill.
Literary reading [Text]: 3 cells. : Textbook. : At 2 pm / N. A. Churakova. - 3rd ed. - M .: Akademkniga / Textbook, 2009. - Ch 1: 192 ., 16 reprod. : ill.
http://wsyachina.narod.ru/physics/snow_2.html
http://upovara.info/forum/index.php?s=a5a460fa2cee1883b817b0a74c55d896&showtopic=1888
http://brembola.pereslavl.info/b7.htm
http://www.cwer.ru/snezhinka_iz_bumagi
http://go.mail.ru/search?q=%D1%ED%E5%E3%20%E2%E8%EA%F2%EE%F0%E8%ED%E0
http://go.mail.ru/search?q=%D1%ED%E5%E3%20%E2%20%F1%EA%E0%E7%EA%E0%F5%2C%20%EF%EE %F1%EB%EE%E2%E8%F6%E0%F5%2C%20%EF%EE%E3%EE%E2%EE%F0%EA%E0%F5%2C%20%EF%F0%E8 %EC%E5%F2%E0%F5
http://news.mail.ru/society/2254437
http://rusfolklor.ru/archives/412
http://www.snowtale.spb.ru/gallery.html

Dear readers, hello! We have a new, well, very entertaining project. All of us have caught small white parachutes falling from the sky on mittens or in warm palms, and sometimes right in our mouths! But where do these patterned ice crystals come from, and do you know what snowflakes are?

Lesson plan:

How do snowflakes appear?

Snowflakes exist in nature thanks to water vapor. From the accumulation of water rain falls in the summer, but in winter the cold air freezes small droplets of water and as a result it snows.

How does this fragile miracle come about? The beginning of each patterned crystal is given by its middle - the core, which can be any speck of dust from the cloud. This speck of dust, as it moves through the clouds, is overgrown with transparent ice crystals, which give it a certain shape. Gradually, so many crystals are glued that the weight of the dust particle makes it fall to the ground.

If you carefully consider the patterns of snowflakes falling from the sky, you can easily notice that none of them is similar to the other.

Interesting Facts! An ordinary snowflake weighs about 1 milligram, rarely 2 or 3. But the most Bolshukhansky ones fell in 1944 in Moscow. You can't even call them snowflakes. The size of a palm, they looked more like ostrich feathers.

Why are snowflakes different?

The question of why ice crystals fall from the sky in different shapes has always been of interest to scientists. The first to think about their structure was the German astronomer Kepler. He wondered why pentagonal or heptagonal snowflakes did not fall from the sky.

The French mathematician Descartes first made detailed description, what ice crystals might look like, and divided them into groups. Rare forms are mentioned in his works.

When the microscope was invented, English physicist Hooke published graphic images of snowflakes, showing all the unique intricate patterns of the natural wonder.

Russian photographer Sigson even managed to take a photo of about two hundred different snowflakes. But the real snow pioneer of photography was the American Bentley, who took 5,000 pictures in his life, of which 2,500 were included in the book Snow Crystals.

Japanese physicist Nakaya learned how to grow snowflakes in the lab. He poetically called them letters from heaven.

As a result of the work of scientists from different countries it became clear that

in nature there is no other form of snowflakes, except for hexagonal,
the species depends on the environment in which the ice crystal is born,
among the factors affecting the shape are air temperature and humidity,
the simplest patterns appear when the air is not very humid,
the higher the percentage of humidity and air temperature, the more complex and beautiful the snowflake turns out.
the angle between the beams can be either 60 or 120 degrees.

Interesting Facts! A snowflake falling on the water creates a high pitched sound. A person, of course, does not hear him, but, as scientists say, such noise is extremely unpleasant for fish.

Now you know where snowflakes come from and why they are different. All ice crystals are conventionally divided into seven simple groups and gave them names.

Plate

The simplest of all, thin and flat. She has many edges that divide the crystal into parts.

Column

These snowflakes, resembling a hollow hexagonal pencil, are the most common of all shapes. It can be blunt or pointed at the ends.

Column with a tip

This type is obtained if an ordinary column falls into certain conditions under which the crystal changes the direction of its growth and gradually turns into a plate at the ends. For example, this happens when moving to another temperature zone under the influence of wind.

Needle

This is a kind of columnar snowflake that has grown thin and long. It happens that they have a cavity inside, but sometimes they open at the ends in the form of branches.

Stars

This specimen has a beautiful branching silhouette that we love to admire. It has six absolutely symmetrical main rays and many different branches. They are about 5 mm in size and are usually flat.

Spatial dendrites

Amazing patterned crystals are voluminous due to the combination of various other types.

Wrong snowflakes

Yes, there is also such a group, which includes damaged representatives who, on the way to us, damaged their twigs or completely broke into pieces. Such crippled snowflakes are usually obtained in strong winds, there are many of them in wet snow.

Remember, we said that different forms are obtained under different conditions? So here it is

stars are usually obtained at temperatures down to -5 degrees,
but the needles - from -5 to -10,
for complex dendrites, the temperature should be at least -10 and not lower than -20 degrees,
but the plates and columns different sizes formed even with air at -35.

Interesting Facts! It is estimated that half of the inhabitants of the Earth have never seen snowflakes. But they have a chance to come north or visit the world's only snowflake museum in Japan on the island of Hokkaido.

Here is an interesting project we have today. Look to us more often, there is still a lot of interesting things in the world to tell about!

By the way, we have already talked about many interesting things. For example, about . we met winter folk omens, and learned more about ball lightning.
Evgenia Klimkovich.

Topic: "Snowflakes - the wings of angels that fell from heaven ..."

Place of work: MOU secondary school No. 9, 3rd grade, Irkutsk region, Ust-Kut

Scientific adviser: Fedotova Irina Vitalievna

1. Introduction.

2. Snowflakes - the wings of angels that fell from heaven:

History of the study of snowflakes;
Conditions for the birth of snowflakes;
Snowflake geometry;
Types of snowflakes;
Physics of snow.

3. Entertaining and informative about snow and snowflake.

Do you know that…;
Snow tales;
Snegurochka - a girl from the snow;
"Lantern for admiring the snow";
Excursion to the museum of snowflakes.
"Summer Snow Festival"

^ 4. A small miracle with your own hands.

Snowflake in 3D format;
Quilling.
How to cut a beautiful snowflake;

5. Conclusion.

Introduction.

"Nature is so about everything

Made sure that everywhere

You find something to learn."

Leonardo Da Vinci

Snow is a great miracle of nature. The legend about the very first snow tells that the Rebellious Angels at the moment of the fall lost their snow-white wings, which covered the earth with a white shiny carpet. So snow appeared, and the first winter came.

When it snows, this spectacle leaves no one indifferent. For some, the falling snow pleases, gives high spirits, while for others, on the contrary, it evokes sadness and sadness. Thanks to snow, every year we admire fabulous winter landscapes, but we love snow not only for this. Snow reserves affect the crop, the water level in the rivers. Snow is used to build winter roads and even airfields. But we do not even think about this useful role of snow. Snow for us is first of all a FAIRY TALE. Have you noticed that various monsters, mythical and fabulous, can live anywhere, but man has not settled them in the snow? But snow inspired a great many fairy tales to man.

The most amazing thing about snowflakes is that none of them repeats the other. Astronomer Johannes Kepler in his treatise "New Year's gift. About hexagonal snowflakes ”explained the shape of the crystals by the will of God. If you live in cold climes, you know firsthand about winter, then you have at least one reason to be proud of it: unlike residents of hot countries, you can admire snowflakes in natural conditions. Believe me, it is very interesting to look at snowflakes, if only because two identical ones have never fallen to the ground.

^ PURPOSE OF THE WORK:

Familiarize yourself with the conditions for the birth of snowflakes;
Consider the division of snowflakes according to shape;
To get acquainted with the geometry and physics of snowflakes;
Learn myths, riddles, proverbs and sayings about snow;
Consider making unusual paper snowflakes.

^ THIS WORK CAN BE USED:

As additional material in the lessons of the "World around" in grade 3;
At the lessons of natural history in the 5th grade;
At the lessons of visual geometry;
As material for messages;
In additional and optional classes for younger students.

"Snowflakes are the wings of angels that have fallen from heaven..."
^

The history of the study of snowflakes.

It is difficult to say when a person first admired this miracle of nature. The forms of snowflakes are unusually diverse - there are more than five thousand of their variations.

Year	Personality	What was observed
1550	Archbishop Olaf Magnus of Uppsala, Sweden	For the first time I observed snowflakes with the naked eye.
1611	Johannes Kepler, German astronomer and mathematician.	Published "A Treatise on Hexagonal Snowflakes"
1635	French mathematician Rene Descartes	Wrote "Study on the shape of snowflakes", observed a 12-ray snowflake
17th century	Robert Hooke	Concluded about six-pointed symmetry in the geometry of snowflakes
17th century	Donat Rosetti, Italian priest and mathematician	The first to classify snowflakes
17th century	William Scoresby, English whaler	first described snow crystals in the form of hexagonal pyramids, columns and their combinations
1839	Feudal ruler of the Land of the Rising Sun Tositsura Onakami Doi	made 97 drawings of "snow flowers".
1885	Wilson Bentley, American farmer Nicknamed "Snowflake"	Got the first successful photo of a snowflake under a microscope
1887	Nikolai Vasilyevich Kaulbars, member of the Russian Geographical Society	For the first time, he sketched and described a snowflake of an unusual shape
1939	Ukihiro Nogaya	Carried out a classification, created a museum of ice crystals
1994	Scientists at the University of Tokyo	We started growing artificial snow for the Sapporo Olympics
1951	International Commission on Snow and Ice	Adopted the classification of snowflakes
2008	Astronomer Kenneth Libbnecht

^ Conditions for the birth of snowflakes.

Under certain conditions, ice hexagons grow intensively along their axis, and then elongated snowflakes form - snowflakes-columns, snowflakes-needles. Under other conditions, hexagons grow mainly in directions perpendicular to their axis, and then snowflakes form in the form hexagonal plates or hexagonal stars. A drop of water can freeze to a falling snowflake - as a result, a snowflake irregular shape. We see, therefore, that the popular belief that snowflakes look like hexagonal stars is erroneous. Moving up and down, they fall into a layer of air with supercooled water droplets. Here, the future snowflake begins to intensively increase in size. In this case, the convex sections of the snowflake grow faster. So, a six-pointed asterisk grows from an originally hexagonal plate. Faced on its way with supercooled droplets, the snowflake is simplified in shape. If it collides with a large drop, it can turn into a small hailstone.

^ Snowflake geometry.

P
look at the snowflake. If you mentally draw a straight line in the middle, it turns out that the right and left parts are the same, relative to the vertical line. This line is called the AXIS OF SYMMETRY. With the phenomenon of symmetry, we often meet in the surrounding life. In addition to mirror symmetry, bodies can also have rotational symmetry . The body has rotational symmetry if, when rotated through the corresponding angle, all parts of the figure are combined with each other. Depending on how many times the figure is aligned with itself during one complete rotation around the axis, the axis of symmetry has a different order (first, second, third, etc.).

Snowflakes have an axis of symmetry of the sixth order. Figures may have more center of symmetry . The center of symmetry is a point relative to which any point of a figure has another point corresponding to it, lying at the same distance from the center in the opposite direction. On snowflakes, it is easiest to make sure that the shape of the crystals is correct and symmetrical. The forms of snowflake stars are surprisingly diverse, but their symmetry is always the same: only six rays. Why? A snowflake can only be six-rayed - such is the symmetry of the structure of snow crystals.

^ Types of snowflakes.

"Star"	"Column"	"Plate"

"Triangle"	"Flat"	"Needle"

"Space Crystals"	"Fern Dendrites"	"Twelve Pointed Star"

^ Physics of snow.

H step on fluffy snow on a frosty day. Do you hear? It is the sound of a myriad of crystals breaking. The lower the temperature, the harder and more fragile the snowflakes, and the stronger the crunch underfoot. Can you tell the temperature by hearing the sound of breaking snowflakes?
After all, each temperature has its own creaking tone.

We are used to seeing white snow. And is he white? The fact is that the complex shape of the ice floes strongly refracts light. As a result, snow reflects white sunlight.

Wet snow in the mountains forms wet avalanches, which have tremendous destructive power and cementing action. Avalanches cause a lot of inconvenience to people, breaking down from the mountains at the most inopportune moment. Usually, avalanches form on slopes with a steepness of 25-45° (however, avalanches are known to descend from slopes with a steepness of 15-18°). On steeper slopes, snow does not accumulate in large quantities and rolls off in small doses as it accumulates. Any avalanches pose a threat, even with a volume of only a few cubic meters.

TO When the white airy beauties descend to the ground, the fun begins. Under the influence of temperature, wind, relief, snowflakes turn into a wide variety of snow forms. Modern snow researchers have analyzed in detail any state of snowflakes.

H and in the Far North, the snow is so hard that the ax, when struck, rings like it was hit on iron. Such snow polishes the surface of the soil, injures plants. And in Antarctica, a 3-4-meter layer of snow that has fallen in a few days becomes so dense that it is hardly torn open by a heavy knife of a powerful bulldozer.

It is known that even in the air snowflakes are constantly changing. Depending on the weather conditions, "own" snow falls in different places. In the Baltics and in the central regions, for example, it often snows in the form of large, complexly shaped branched snowflakes, sometimes shaggy flakes.

The snow is slippery because under the pressure and friction of the runners of the sleigh or skis, the surface particles of the snow cover melt, and the film of water that appears in this case serves as a lubricant. The "slipperiness" therefore depends on the temperature of the snow and on the speed of travel. The largest snowflake was recorded on January 28, 1887 in the USA in the state of Montana. It was 38 cm in diameter.

^ Entertaining and informative about snow and snowflakes.

Do you know that…

1. A snowflake is one of the most fantastic examples of the self-organization of matter from simple to complex.

3. Snowflakes are absolutely transparent. They only appear white to us due to the refraction of light at the edges of the crystals.

4. In the Japanese city of Kaga, the Museum of Snow and Ice was opened, made in the form of three hexagonal buildings.

6. Snowflakes are 95% air, which results in low density and relatively slow falling speed (0.9 km/h).

7. Snow can be eaten. True, the energy consumption for eating snow is many times greater than its calorie content.

8. More than half of the world's population has never seen snow, except in photographs.

10. A layer of one centimeter of snow packed over the winter gives 25-35 cubic meters of water per 1 ha.

12. Two or three icebergs of medium size contain a mass of water equal to the annual flow of the Volga (the annual flow of the Volga is 252 cubic kilometers).

14. The US Postal Service issued 4 snowflake stamps in October 2006.

15. There are people who can judge the temperature of the air by the way the snow creaks.

16. US scientists spent $26,400,000 to find out that snowflakes form directly from steam, bypassing the rain stage.

"Snow Tales"

IN This, of course, is familiar with fairy tales about snow wizards. In a Russian folk tale, this is Morozko, and in Andersen's fairy tale, it is the Snow Queen. Remember how different they are? Morozko is kind and warm-hearted, and fair to the same. He generously endowed the industrious girl, and ridiculed the lazy and envious. The Snow Queen from Andersen's fairy tale appears before us in a completely different way. It is cold and uncomfortable in her ice palace, and the pieces of ice scattered by her around the world pierce into human hearts, and they become callous and evil. Two fairy tales about the rulers of the snow - and they are so different. The snow itself can be just as different. When it snows, this spectacle leaves no one indifferent. For some, the falling snow pleases, gives high spirits, while for others, on the contrary, it evokes sadness and sadness. Thanks to snow, every year we admire fabulous winter landscapes, but we love snow not only for this. Snow reserves affect the crop, the water level in the rivers. Snow is used to build winter roads and even airfields. But we do not even think about this useful role of snow. Snow for us is first of all a FAIRY TALE. Have you noticed that various monsters, mythical and fabulous, can live anywhere, but man has not settled them in the snow? But snow inspired a great many fairy tales to man. Snow and fairy tales have one thing in common. Both fairy tales and snow tell us about miraculous TRANSFORMATIONS. As Cinderella turns into a princess, so the dull black field under the fallen snow, as if by magic, turns into a magnificent carpet sparkling in the sun. Snow is one of the amazing phenomena of nature. Its variability is almost mysterious.

^ Snegurochka - a girl from the snow.

The snow girl who comes to us on New Year's Eve is a unique phenomenon. In no other New Year's mythology, except for Russian, there is a female character! Meanwhile, we ourselves know little about her ... They say she is made of snow ... And melts with love. So, at least, the writer Alexander Ostrovsky introduced the Snow Maiden in 1873, who can be safely considered the foster dad of the ice girl.
The true roots of the relationship of the Snow Maiden go to the pre-Christian mythology of the Slavs. In with In the northern regions of pagan Rus', there was a custom to make idols from snow and ice. And the image of a revived ice girl is often found in the legends of those times. The parents of the Snow Maiden turned out to be Frost and Spring-Krasna. The girl lived alone, in a dark cold forest, not showing her face to the sun, yearning and reaching out to people. And one day she came out of the thicket to them. According to Ostrovsky's fairy tale, the icy Snow Maiden was distinguished by fearfulness and modesty, but there was not a trace of spiritual coldness in her. But if her heart falls in love and becomes hot, the Snow Maiden will die! She knew this, and yet she made up her mind: she begged from Mother Spring the ability to love passionately. How it looked was demonstrated by the artists Vasnetsov, Vrubel and Roerich. It was thanks to their paintings that we learned that the Snow Maiden wears a pale blue caftan and a cap with an edge, and sometimes a kokoshnik. This was the first time children saw her at the festive tree of 1937 in the Moscow House of Unions.
The Snow Maiden did not come to Santa Claus right away. Although even before the revolution, Christmas trees were decorated with figurines of a snow girl, girls dressed up in costumes of the Snow Maiden. In Soviet Russia, officially celebrating the New Year was allowed only in 1935. Christmas trees began to be set up all over the country and Santa Claus was invited. But suddenly an assistant appeared next to him - a sweet, modest girl with a scythe over her shoulder, dressed in a blue fur coat. First a daughter, then - it is not known why - a granddaughter. The first joint appearance of Father Frost and the Snow Maiden took place in 1937 - since then it has been the custom. The Snow Maiden leads round dances with children, conveys their requests to Grandfather Frost, helps distribute gifts, sings songs and dances with birds and animals.
And the New Year is not the New Year without the glorious assistant of the main wizard of the country.

"Yukimi - tora" - "Lantern for admiring the snow"

IN Japanese culture has the concept of "yukimi" - "admiring the snow." The Japanese even have such a holiday. Still would! After all, such a complex form, ideal symmetry and variety of outlines, which this amazing creation of nature shows us, people at one time could only associate with the action of supernatural forces or with divine providence. In Japanese gardens, you can find an unusual stone lantern topped with a wide roof with upturned edges. This is Yukimi-Toro, a lantern for admiring the snow. Yukimi Festival is designed to give people enjoyment of the beauty of everyday life. Struck by the extremely complex shape, perfect symmetry and endless variety of snowflakes, people from ancient times associated their outlines with the action of supernatural forces or divine providence.

^ Excursion to the Museum of snowflakes.

IN The small Japanese city of Kaga, located on the western coast of the island of Honshu, has an unusual museum. Snow and ice. It was founded by Ukihiro Nakaya, the first person who learned how to grow artificial snowflakes in the laboratory, as beautiful as those that fall from the sky. In this museum, visitors are surrounded on all sides by regular hexagons, because it is precisely this symmetry that is characteristic of ordinary ice crystals. It determines many of its unique properties and causes snowflakes, with all their endless variety, to grow in the form of stars with six, less often three or twelve rays, but never four or five. In 1932, nuclear physicist Ukihiro Nakaya, a professor at the University of Hokkaido, started growing artificial snow crystals, which made it possible to compile the first classification of snowflakes and reveal the dependence of the size and shape of these formations on air temperature and humidity. In the city of Kaga, located on the western coast of the island of Honshu, there is the Museum of Snow and Ice founded by Ukihiro Nakaya, which now bears his name, is symbolically built in the form of three hexagons. The museum keeps a machine for making snowflakes. The Japanese scientist Nakaya Ukichiro called snow "a letter from heaven, written in secret hieroglyphs." He was the first to create a classification of snowflakes. The only snowflake museum in the world, located on the island of Hokkaido, is named after Nakaya.

"Summer Snow Festival"

At Catholics have a holiday of summer snowfall.
The holiday is dedicated to the legend, according to which the Virgin Mary indicated the place where Her temple should be erected with the fallen snow.

"A small miracle with your own hands." Master class on making snowflakes.

Snowflake in 3D.

To make one snowflake, you will need: 6 square pieces of paper of the same size , scissors, ruler, pencil, tape, stapler, thread or other material for hanging a snowflake.

^ Operating procedure:

Fold each piece of paper diagonally and draw future slots on it along the ruler:	We cut the intended slots and unfold the pieces of paper:
We begin to twist the tubes to form paper snowflakes by taping them	The next "frame" of the future paper snowflake twist it to the other side. We alternate the sides, we get six blocks
In each half of a paper snowflake that we make with our own hands, there will be three such blocks fastened with a stapler	We fasten the halves of the snowflake together, also with a stapler: We also fasten the blocks together, insert a thread for hanging into one of these fasteners:
Snowflakes can be made in different colors, textures and sizes, and the number of cuts can also be varied. It all depends on your requests, the interior and the amount of paper that you do not mind spending on decorating it. It is beautiful to make such snowflakes from colored paper, you can use the existing foil or colored film, and the finished snowflake can be covered with glitter hairspray!	Here is the result:

Quilling.

Quilling, also known as paper rolling, is an art that has been practiced since the Renaissance. The technique is as follows: narrow strips of paper are twisted into rolls, shaped and glued with glue.

^ Scheme of work:

The results are also different:

How to cut a beautiful snowflake.

1.	2.	3.
4.	5.	6.
7.	8.
Result

Conclusion.

If you live in cold climes, you know firsthand about winter, then you have at least one reason to be proud of it: unlike residents of hot countries, you can admire snowflakes in natural conditions. And this is not at all as prosaic as it seems, you just need to dress warmly and go outside, taking with you the most ordinary magnifying glass or magnifying glass. Believe me, it is very interesting to look at snowflakes, if only because two identical ones have never fallen to the ground.
And in general, we advise you to carry a magnifying glass in your coat pocket all winter, because you never know when the most beautiful snowflake will fall from the sky.
Where did the snow come from? The legend says that the rebellious angels lost their snow-white wings at the time of the fall. And so the snow appeared. Do you know that more than half of the world's population has never seen snow? Or seen, but only in photographs. In the Eskimo language, there are more than 20 words for the name of snow, in the Yakut language - about 70. Most snowflakes weigh about a milligram. But billions of snowflakes can affect the speed of the Earth's rotation. When the white airy beauties descend to the ground, the fun begins. Under the influence of temperature, wind, relief, snowflakes turn into a wide variety of snow forms. Round dances begin to circle in snow blizzards, howl together in a snowstorm, wrap houses and roads in fluffy impassable snowdrifts. Struck by the extremely complex shape, perfect symmetry and endless variety of snowflakes, people from ancient times associated their outlines with the action of supernatural forces or divine providence.

Used literature and sources INTERNET:

Perelman Ya. I. Entertaining tasks and experiments. D.: VAP, 1994.-547 p.
Physics in nature / Tarasov L.V.: Book. for students. – M.: Enlightenment, 1998.- 351 p.: ill.
Literary reading [Text]: 3 cells. : Textbook. : At 2 pm / N. A. Churakova. - 3rd ed. - M .: Akademkniga / Textbook, 2009. - Ch 1: 192 ., 16 reprod. : ill.

It was once said that every drop of rain reflects the whole world. In each snowflake, the beauty and harmony of nature appear before us. So we decided to introduce children closer to the beautiful and amazing natural science field - crystallography, remembering the time when, as children ourselves, we admired the bizarre carved and lace crystals on mittens.

This winter in the camp Nanocamp children and I will catch, photograph, study and grow snowflakes and other crystals on our own!

We hope that our growing experiments snowflakes in the lab will be just as successful and we can make rasta videos of them. Below are videos with frame-by-frame shooting of the growth of a snowflake crystal for 70 minutes, made by professorLibbrecht.

Even looking at the snowflakes with the naked eye, you can see that none of them repeats the other. It is assumed that in one cubic meter of snow there are 350 million snowflakes, each of which is unique. There are no pentagonal or heptagonal snowflakes, they all have a strictly hexagonal shape (although Soviet artists were forced to draw five-pointed snowflakes on posters). Full of perfect harmony, the designs of snow crystals have been attracting people's interest for many years.

One of the first people to notice the snowflake was Johannes Kepler, famous astronomer and discoverer of the laws of planetary motion.

In 1611, the researcher published his treatise New Year's gift. About a hexagonal snowflake”, in which, however, he explained the shape of the crystals by the will of God. This study can be considered the first ever work on the study of snow crystals. Kepler wondered why crystals always have the shape of a regular hexagon. He explained this phenomenon by the dense arrangement of spheres that form the hexagonal structure of the crystal.

Kepler first became interested in the nature of the symmetry of snowflakes, but could not explain it. It took 300 years before scientists were able to answer the question posed by Kepler. This was made possible by the discovery of X-ray crystallography.

I intercepted the relay ice stick (although, in our case, it was most likely just a snowflake) Rene Descartes, philosopher and mathematician. It was he who first described in detail the shape of snow crystals - as well as it could be done without the help of a microscope. In his writings, he wrote that snowflakes look like roses, lilies and wheels with six teeth. His detailed notes, dated 1635, contained descriptions of rare forms of snowflakes - 12-angled and columnar. Mathematics was especially struck by the “tiny white dot” he found in the middle of the snowflake, as if it were the trace of the leg of a compass, which was used to outline its circumference.

The basis for the formation of a snowflake, its tiny core, is ice or foreign dust particles in clouds. Water molecules, randomly moving in the form of water vapor, pass through the clouds, then along with the temperature they lose their speed. More and more hexagonal water molecules are attached to the growing snowflake in certain places, giving it a distinct shape. In this case, the convex sections of the snowflake grow faster. So, a six-pointed asterisk grows from an originally hexagonal plate.

In 1665 Robert Hook published a huge volume called Micrographia. The work included an image of everything that the author could see thanks to the largest invention of that time - the microscope. In this album there were numerous photos of snowflakes, which clearly show the absolute symmetry and regular shape of snow crystals. This discovery changed the then ideas about snowflakes.

Next was Wilson Bentley(1865-1931) - American farmer who photographed snow crystals. His collection contains 5,000 photographs, of which more than 2,000 were published in 1931 in his famous monograph Snow Crystals. The book is published in additional editions to this day.

Trailer for the 60-minute film by W. Bentley "Snowflakes in Motion".

Ukichiro Nakaya called snow "a letter from heaven, written in secret hieroglyphs." He became the first scientist who managed to create a systematic theory of snow crystals. It was a huge breakthrough in understanding the nature of snow.

Nakaya, a nuclear physicist by profession, was appointed professor in Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, in 1932. It was not possible to conduct nuclear research in a new place, but snowflakes attracted the scientist’s attention - fortunately, there was no shortage of “experimental material” in cold Hokkaido.

Unlike Bentley, the Japanese photographed and studied all the crystals that came across, including not very beautiful and asymmetrical ones. Through hard work and a scientific approach to work, Nakaya was able to compile a detailed catalog of snowflake types.

The real scientific triumph of Nakaya was the cultivation of artificial snowflakes in given conditions. This made it possible to determine the patterns between the shape of snow crystals and the environment of their formation.

The result of several years of work of the scientist was the work "Snow crystals: natural and artificial." First published in 1954, the book is still being published today. It reveals a fascinating scientific study that started from almost nothing and ended with a careful study and detailed classification of snowflakes - an impressive natural phenomenon.

Crystallography is currently being actively developed in connection with the needs of electronics and solid state physics - in particular, the properties of semiconductors used in our everyday electronic devices depend to a large extent on the characteristics of the crystals used in them.

The next step in the study of the properties of the most famous natural crystals - snowflakes - was made by a professor of physics Kenneth Libbrecht(Kenneth Libbrecht) of the California Institute of Technology. In the laboratory of Professor Libbrecht, snowflakes are grown artificially. “I'm trying to figure out the dynamics of crystal formation at the molecular level,” comments the professor. “This is not an easy task, and the ice crystals hide many secrets.”

A snowflake is a complex symmetrical structure made up of ice crystals clustered together. There are many “assembly” options - so far it has not been possible to find two identical snowflakes among the snowflakes. Research carried out in the laboratory of Libbrecht confirms this fact - crystal structures can be grown artificially or observed in nature. There is even a classification of snowflakes, but despite general laws construction, snowflakes will still be slightly different from each other even in the case of relatively simple structures.

In order to study the characteristics of snowflakes, since 2001 Prof. Libbrecht began taking photographs of naturally formed snowflakes and classifying them comparatively. The structure and appearance of snowflakes, as it turned out, depend on where exactly they were observed. According to Libbrecht, the most beautiful and complex snowflakes fall where the climate is harsher - for example, in Alaska, but in New York, where the climate is milder, the structures of snow crystals are much simpler.

Apparently, the scientist has never been to Russia, then he would have declared with absolute certainty that there can be no more beautiful Russian snowflakes.

Classification of snowflakes according to a similar type:

Prisms- there are both 6-coal plates and thin columns with a 6-coal section. Prisms are tiny and almost invisible to the naked eye. The edges of the prism are very often decorated with various complex patterns.

Needles- thin and long snow crystals, they form at a temperature of about -5 degrees.
When viewed, they look like small light hairs.

Dendrites- or tree-like, have pronounced branching thin rays. More often these are large crystals, they can be seen with the naked eye. The maximum size of a dendrite can reach 30 cm in diameter.

12-ray snowflakes- sometimes columns with tips are formed with the rotation of the plates relative to each other by 30 degrees. When rays grow from each plate, a crystal with 12 rays is obtained.

double records- in this type, the posts with tips have a short vertical part. The plates grow very quickly, from water vapor one of the bottom obscures the second and as a result grows larger in size.

hollow posts- inside columns with a hexagonal section, cavities sometimes form. Interestingly, the shape of the cavities is symmetrical with respect to the center of the crystal. High magnification is needed to see half of the small snowflakes.

fern-like dendrites- this type is one of the largest. The branches of stellate dendrites grow thin and very frequent, as a result, the snowflake begins to look like a fern.

Dimensional Crystals- it happens that from a microscopic drop several snow crystals begin to grow in different directions. And then they can take on a complex shape. Such intergrown crystals can disintegrate into several simple snowflakes.

triangular crystals- such snowflakes are formed at a temperature of about -2 degrees. In fact, these are hexagonal prisms, some of the sides of which are much shorter than others. But on the faces of such rays can grow.

Poles with tips- such snowflakes are rarely seen. Crystals begin to grow in the form of columns, but after the wind carries them into the zone with others weather conditions, and then plates begin to grow at their ends.

star-shaped snowflakes- such snowflakes are widespread. These are thin lamellar crystals, in the form of stars with six rays. More often they are decorated with symmetrical various patterns. Such snowflakes appear at -2 °C or -15 °C.

Plate with sectors is a star-shaped lamellar snowflake, but with particularly prominent edges that indicate the angles between adjacent prism faces.