Sadly, we will not be having a white Christmas here in Maine this year. I was reminded of this when I received a YouTube notification about the latest TED-Ed lesson. The Science of Snowflakes is a new video lesson that explains how snowflakes are formed, why they’re all different, and why seem to be “wetter” than others. The video also explains why all skiing is water skiing.

The lesson above briefly mentions skiing. To learn more about the science of skiing, take a look at the video below. The video examines the roles of gravity, acceleration, and friction on the speed of a skier. After watching the video, delve into more detail with this lesson plan from the University of Utah’s math department.

A few year ago ByteSize Science produced a video on the chemistry of snowflakes. That video is embedded below.