Children’s Museum Houston

Classroom Curriculum

Supercooled Instant Freeze Ice and Sodas

Get supercool and make homemade ICEEs in a cooler and learn the actual science behind these quick-freeze drinks.

As Mr. O mentions at the end of the video, you can do this in your freezer, but freezers can vary widely. We recommend you start with bottles of water. Lay a bottle down flat in the freezer and let it sit for about 90 minutes. Then, check it every 30 or so minutes. The moment you see ice, make a note of the time and subtract 15 minutes from it. Use that as a base start for the experiment and try it out, then adjust it in 5 minute intervals until you get the water to instantly freeze in the bottle. Once that is done, you’re good to go to test with sodas.

By the way, you may notice at the end of the video that the soda slush is a bit melted. Sorry about that – hot lights and flubbed lines caused it to melt a little quickly. We recommend drinking your soda slush straight from the bottle to avoid this issue.

Mr. O’s “O Wow Moments” help you to become an scientist at home with hands-on, minds-on experiments and demos! Watch Mr. O every Saturday morning during the 7 a.m. news on Houston's KPRC Local 2 to see a new science demo you can try at home. Share your experiments with us on facebook and Instragram!