Ice is interesting that if you freeze it, it actually gets heavier. This is because it pulls in more mass from the air.

So why would ice float?

It has to do with the charge of the atoms. Oxygen has a negative charge and Hydrogen has a positive charge. However the charge is very weak. In water, the charge doesn't come into play since everything is moving around.

However, once everything gets cold and the molecules slow down, they organize in a structure. This structure causes ice to expand. So it is less dense than the water is. It has little pockets of air inside. It is kind of like Styrofoam.

Water on left, Ice on right

Why does this matter?

Insulation!!!!

The Ice and snow that come on top of it, insulates the water during the winter. Without this insulation the fish and plants in the lakes would not survive.

This would severely limit the food chain, which would severely limit where we could live on the Earth.

Isaiah 45:18
Thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), “I am the Lord, and there is none else."

Sometimes it is the little details that make a big difference and show how much God planned for everything to work just right.

© Vivian P. Kirkpatrick, 2015