Insulation 3: FT: Snow & Rocks – FT

SNOW CAVES: On a cold day, a single layer of clothing is best to help keep an insulating layer of air between you and the outside cold air. Having an air barrier from the cold helps to hold in heat.

SNOW CAVES: If your arms are bare and it’s cold outside, the cold air molecules will touch your skin and draw heat from you.

SNOW CAVES: Three teenager boys set out for a hike up Mt. Hood in Oregon. They were into the third day of their climb when a huge blizzard suddenly rolled in. They dug a snow cave. 

SNOW CAVES: The snow cave was cold, but it insulated the kids from the colder temperatures outside the snow cave.

SNOW CAVES: For thirty days, the boys couldn’t leave the snow cave as the worst storm in recorded history pounded the mountain. Their food reserves were eventually cut to 2 tablespoons of jello and pancake mix a day. 

SNOW CAVES: The boys’ cave was warmer than freezing. It melted the ice and dripped down on them and got them wet. But it was no problem for them because they had waterproof gear.

SNOW CAVES:  So much snow piled up on the boys in their snow cave that they had to leave the cave by a 400-foot tunnel through the snow!  

MICA:  Mica was used in spacecraft like satellites and probes to keep them from getting too hot. Part of the spacecraft might be generating a lot of heat–like the electronics. A piece of mica would be put next to it to keep the heat from transferring to another part of the spacecraft. 

MICA:  Mica was used in wood stoves. (For the viewing window.) Glass that can withstand the temperatures of wood stove was later substituted for the clear muscovite mica.

MICA: In early space craft, mica “blocked heat” from going from one electronic component to another.