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Jessi: Hi guys! We're all bundled up for some Winter fun. Squeaks wants to build a snowman. Oh, I mean-- my bad, a snow rat.

Whether it's a snow person or a snow rat, building a snow being is all about balance. Can you guess what kind of scientist has to spend a lot of time thinking about how things balance? That's right! Engineers. There are all kinds of engineers, but I'm thinking about building engineers. They build tall buildings like houses and even skyscrapers. So when we're planning on building a snowman, we need to think like engineers.

Squeaks and I like to build with three different size snowballs, a big one, a small one, and a medium one that's smaller than the big one but nigger than the small ones. To make the snowballs, I first pack a bunch of snow in my hands to make a ball, then once the ball is almost too big to hole, I put it on the ground and roll it. The ball will pick up snow and get bigger and bigger. Then, I do this twice more so I end up with three snowballs to build my snowman.

Let's try a few different ways to stack our snowballs and see what works and what doesn't work. First, just for fun, let's try putting the smallest ball on the bottom, and the medium ball in the middle and the biggest ball on top. Oh man! The two balls on top toppled over. That's because the bigger balls don't have enough room underneath them to sit on. With the smaller balls underneath them, they have to be very carefully balanced to stay upright. And if there's just a little too much weight on one side or the other, you've got a snowman down!

That's why snowmen aren't very good at headstands. Now, what if we put the medium ball on bottom, then the small one, then the big one? Augh! The big one falls off right away! But the smaller ball stays where it is. That's because the smaller ball has a lot of room to rest on. It's totally supported by the medium ball, so there's nowhere for it to fall. But the biggest ball doesn't have nearly enough room underneath it to sit on.

But how about this: What if we put the biggest ball on the bottom, the medium size ball in the middle, and the smallest ball on top? Finally, we have a snowman that can actually stand up. Now we're really thinking like engineers. Engineers have to make sure that buildings are supported at the bottom just like our snowman so they don't topple over. The biggest snowball goes on bottom to support the medium ball in the middle and the smallest ball rests on the top. Now we just need a carrot for our nose, some sticks for arms, some rat ears made out of snow, a tail made out of rope, and cute button eyes. Hey, it looks a lot like you Squeaks!

What kind of awesome stuff have you built out of snow? A snowman, a snow rat? A snow fort? Did it stand up or fall down to the ground? Get help from a parent and send us a picture of your cool snow creations at kids@thescishow.com, and we'll see you next time.

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