Our toddlers at Apple Hill Academy recently learned about igloos. They used cotton balls to paint their igloos. Although cotton balls can be used to line our clothing for insulation purposes, they were never used by builders to insulate igloos (and neither do they paint real igloos.) Interestingly though, snowballs were used for insultation in the building of igloos because the air pockets trapped inside made them an excellent insulator.
While igloos are often associated with Eskimo peoples, they were traditionally used only by the people of Canada’s Central Arctic and Greenland’s Thule area. Also known as a snow house or snow hut, igloos were constructed from whalebone and hides. They were only built as temporary shelters and were never meant for long term dwelling. It’s no wonder, because even dressed in proper clothing, one could hardly survive long term in an igloo — the temperatures inside seldom reached above 16 °C (19 °F) when warmed by body heat alone. At Apple Hill Academy, we keep the temperature inside our school nice and warm for our students while it is freezing cold on the outside.
