Have you heard that saying, “She weighs 115 pounds, soaking wet”?

That saying hit me this morning while stepping out of the shower.

I’m doing Weight Watchers and so I’m a bit hyper-focused on weight right now.

So I thought I’d do an experiment. With math of course.

Do I weigh more soaking wet?

I weighed myself before I dried my hair. And then I weighed again, after it was dry.

I didn’t do anything else – no consuming or, ahem, evacuating. I kept the same state of clothing.

I didn’t move too much for fear I’d lose weight through energy. (To be honest, I don’t know if you can do that. But I thought I should play it safe and be relatively still.)

I didn’t even pick my nose.

And guess what…

I lost two tenths of a pound! That’s 0.2 pounds lost, just from blow drying my hair!

Okay, it’s not much, but it’s something.

It’s a Math Lesson!

You can do this at home or in the classroom. Have some volunteers agree to a hair wetting. (You might need parent’s permission, so consider that.)

Weigh them before and after the blow dry.

Do it with short haired kids and long haired kids. Put the results on a chart.

You can organize it by name, gender, color of hair, length of hair. You could even do density of hair – an opinion, of course, unless you get the Science teacher involved.

It’s fun and Standards aligned!

In doing this activity, students organize, represent and interpret data. This is directly from the Measurement & Data piece of the Common Core State Standards.

When you do it, please share your pictures, stories and thoughts in the comments. And let other teachers know by sharing on Twitter and Pinterest.

Now get in there and get wet!

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