Snow in Science, Culture, and Climate

  • AVALANCHE! Investigating snowpack dynamics and snow safety

    Overview Duration: 20+ minutes Location: Outdoor (possible inside) About: Students use an avalanche tilt board with snow simulants (flour, sugar, etc.) to investigate how slopeRead More

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  • WATER AND ICE: Density and molecular structure

    WATER AND ICE: Density and molecular structure Overview The target age range for this lesson is middle school and up. For an elementary-appropriate version, seeRead More

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Check out our latest museum exhibit below!

This website is all about snow.

Perhaps the best way to understand the importance of snow is to imagine a world without snow.

Skis and sleds would never have been invented.

Plants and animals would be different.

The Earth would be a lot warmer.

Las Vegas and Los Angeles would be much smaller.

Fewer kinds of food would be available, and there would be less of it.

Tourism and agricultural industries worth trillions of dollars would not exist.

Not to mention, the world would be a less beautiful, less interesting place!

A lot of what is on this site is about snow in Alaska (which is where the people who created it live), but a lot of it applies to other snowy places, and even places where it doesn’t snow at all!


From snowflakes to snowmobiles, lynx to language, avalanches to albedo, and raisins to rivers, explore the many ways that snow connects to everything else on Earth.

Dig in!

A scanning electron microscope image of a new snow crystal and an old snow crystalA man and a woman driving a prototype motorized snow vehicleSky view Hungry Horse Dam surrounded by mountains and clear water
a woolly mammoth

Also, check out our previous project:

Hot Times in Cold Places: Permafrost during Climate Change

AND

Under the Arctic: Digging into Permafrost,

a museum exhibition developed by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.