In nearly six years of writing this blog, I’ve never focused on the many unique properties of water.
You probably learned about these properties in a basic chemistry course. But, if you’re like me, you never really appreciated how crucial these properties are to life on our planet.
For example, water is among only a few compounds that expands when freezing. Without this property, icebergs — and much of the polar regions — would sink, raising sea levels. As a result, instead of making up 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, water would be everywhere, covering almost the entire landscape.
In the first video on this page, Hank Green talks about “Water: Liquid Awesome.” This is the second video in the “Biology Series” of “Crash Course,” a collection of amusing videos that Hank and his brother John produced to teach people about science, history, literature and more. See Wikipedia for the background on “Crash Course.”
Other videos have focused on particular properties of water:
“To Stick or Not to Stick” — cohesion and adhesion
“36 Drops of Water on a Penny” — surface tension
If you’d like to delve deeper into the chemistry of water, including how to calculate concentrations, check out “Water and Solutions — for Dirty Laundry.” Hank Green will even tell you how to use hydrogen peroxide to get your laundry cleaner.
