Here in Maine we received our first snow of the 2014-2015 winter season. There was enough natural snow combined with man-made snow that the ski resort near my house is opening tomorrow. Seeing the snow prompted me to look through my archives for lessons about the science of snow.

Scholastic’s Interactive Weather Maker is an online activity in which students adjust temperatures and humidity levels to create rain and snow storms. Students simply move the temperature and humidity sliders until rain or snow begins to show up in the scene on their screens. Adjusting the settings in the Interactive Weather Maker could be a good way for students to see the correlation between humidity and temperature as it relates to creating rain and snow storms.

The episode of Bytesize Science embedded below explains how snowflakes are created.

In the winter when we have fresh snow combined with a full moon I don’t have to wear a headlamp to see my dogs in the yard at night. In the following Minute Physics video we learn why the full moon appears brighter in the winter.