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Crush a Can in Ice Water

Crush a Can in Ice Water

by Emily | Aug 6, 2026 | STEAM Activities, STEAM for Kids, Water Activities | 0 comments

My kids and I tried this new experiment last week, and to be honest it was a bust. It did eventually work, but not before we failed no less than five times first. By then my kids were grumpy, disappointed, and disengaged with the experiment. I was disappointed too,...

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Hi, I'm Emily. I love doing STEAM activities with my kids and sharing them here with you.

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Engineering Emily's book The Amazing Book of STEM is a workbook to learn about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, with activities, puzzles and 10 amazing experiments. It's available on Amazon! Click here to purchase it!

Engineering Emily's book STEAM Activity Journal is a guided notebook to learn about Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math, create experiments, notes, drawings, and designs. It's available on Amazon! Click here to purchase it!

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Today I’m featuring the STEM favorites pages in my Today I’m featuring the STEM favorites pages in my book The Amazing Book of STEM. First there is a STEM Favorites checklist where kids can pick from a list of some fun things to learn and do in STEM. Next, you can find the STEM favorites in a fun and challenging word search. It’s not easy, but that’s what makes it good for older kids! Which STEM Favorites should you check off? I like all of them! 🥰 There are so many cool pages to discover in The Amazing Book of STEM. I’ll continue to share some of pages and all the cool things for kids to discover in the book. You can buy The Amazing BooK of STEM on Amazon. #stemforkids #stembook #stemeducation #stemauthor #stembooks
Crush a Can in Ice Water - FAILURE edition! Yeste Crush a Can in Ice Water - FAILURE edition! Yesterday I showed how cool and easy this experiment is if it goes right! But before we had the awesome success we had many failures. I originally wanted to make a face to camera video like I usually do, so I tried boiling water in a kettle then pouring it into the can, but this didn’t get the can hot enough for the experiment to work. I tried it 3 times with minor changes, all with no success. Eventually, I decided to try the original way I had seen this experiment done, but heating the can directly on the stove. But my tongs couldn’t grip the can good so I had trouble flipping the can into the ice water. I kept hitting it at an angle and allowing air in so it didn’t work. Eventually, I got the hang of flipping it with my tongs, and got the crushed can I showed in yesterday’s video. My kids were disappointed when this experiment wasn’t working, but I reminded them that failure is part of experimenting. It’s rare to get experiments right on the first try, especially when trying something new. Both my books, STEAM Activity Journal and The Amazing Book of STEM, emphasize that failure is part of the experimentation process. We don’t see it as failing, just an opportunity to reevaluate and try again! Check out my books on Amazon, they have so much more than expected, and many lessons learned. 😃 Have you tried this experiment yet? Did you get it first try or have a few failures first like us? #failure #learningfromfailure #dontgiveup #stemforkids #cokecan
Crush a can in ice water! 🚨Note: BURN DANGER! If Crush a can in ice water! 🚨Note: BURN DANGER! If you try this, the can becomes extremely hot on the stove and must be handled with tongs and/or an oven mitt. Do not touch the can with your bare hands. To do this experiment: 1️⃣ Fill a clean empty can with a small amount of water (enough to cover the bottom of the can). 2️⃣ Bring the water to a boil by placing the can in a pan on your stove and heating the pan. 3️⃣ Use tongs to grab the can and quickly flip it upside down into a bowl of ice water. 4️⃣ The can will instantly crush. When this works it is pretty cool! It makes loud crushing sounds and happens so fast! The challenging part is flipping the can upside down into the ice water quickly. I simply was not able to do that skillfully with tongs (and it’s too hot to touch with your hands). This experiment works because the can is full of steam from boiling a small amount of water in it on the stove. When you flip it into the ice water, the cold water cools the steam to water, which takes up less space inside the can than steam. As no air can enter the submerged can, the outside air pressure crushes the can as the steam changes state to water. If air enters the can as it touches the ice water it won’t work. I debated sharing this experiment because we had so much difficulty with it, so first here is our success video, but come back tomorrow for our failure story. This experiment failed on our first 5+ attempts. 😵‍💫 Would you try this? Or have you already done this experiment with success? What’s the secret to quickly flipping the can straight into the ice water? #cokecancrush #coke #cokecan #scienceexperiment #stemforkids
Our Favorite STEM Affirmations from The Amazing Bo Our Favorite STEM Affirmations from The Amazing Book of STEM. The Amazing Book of STEM has so much more than you’d expect from a STEM experiment book. My previous reel showed you some of the STEM jokes, and these are some of our favorite affirmations. Did you know The Amazing Book of STEM has 50 STEM themed affirmations? You can buy it on Amazon! DM me or comment to ask for the link. ☺️ I strongly believe in affirmations and that’s why they’re included in both my books: The Amazing Book of STEM and STEAM Activity Journal! What is your favorite STEM affirmation? #stemaffirmations #affirmations #affirmationsforkids #author #stemforkids
One of my favorite sections in my book The Amazing One of my favorite sections in my book The Amazing Book of STEM is the STEM Jokes! The book features 20 STEM themed jokes for kids, parents, and teachers! They are sure to make you giggle (even if you’re just giggling about how bad the joke is 😉). In this video we share a few of our favorites but there’s many more in the book! Get your copy today, it’s available exclusively on Amazon, link in bio! Which joke is your favorites? Do you have a good STEM joke we didn’t include? #jokes #stemjokes #jokesforkids #funnymom #funnyfamily
The trip of my dreams! We went on Alaskan cruise a The trip of my dreams! We went on Alaskan cruise and it was everything I hoped for and more! The scenery, the animals, the history, the people, it all made an epic adventure. We went in the cruise with my entire extended family, including my parents, sister and her family, and brother and his family. We had a blast together on the cruise ship and enjoyed a few huge family meals. The excursions were so amazing and gave us a chance to see places and things we never would have gotten a chance to visit otherwise. From glaciers, to rainforests, to the animals, to the food, to souvenirs, we loved every stop. My favorites were Glacier Bay National Park and the rainforest in Ketchikan. My daughter loved the Yukon sled dogs we saw during our Skagway stop. My husband loved the crabs in Juneau. We learned so much of Alaska’s history along the way, and about how challenging but beautiful life can be for people in these small towns. Have you ever been on an Alaskan cruise? I would definitely recommend it, especially if you’re an outdoor person like me! #alaskancruise #alaska #dreamvacation #firstcruise #norweiganencore
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