How much snow is that?

Start this activity with: What do you notice? What do you wonder? How many inches of snow produced that pile?  How much snow in volume is on top of the car?  How much could that snow weigh? Students try to approximate the weight of the snow by using our snow water equivalent percents (SWE) and their own thoughts about how dense this snow might be.  When they've calculated a weight or range of weights, we try to decide whether the car should have been flattened by all of that snow.  Wicked fun!  Is this even possible or was this picture photoshopped?

Consider letting students work on page 1 as a class.  After your class's 1^st page discussion, provide pages 2 and 3 .