Hi there! Have you ever wondered who came up with the idea of ice skates? Let’s dive into this frosty adventure and find out!
Imagine living in a place where winter brings lots of snow and ice. That’s what it was like for Jay, who grew up in Wisconsin. Winter meant building snow forts, having snowball fights, and sledding down hills. But one of the coolest things you can do in winter is ice skating!
Ice skating is when you put on special shoes called skates and glide across the ice. You can do all sorts of fun things like zooming around, jumping, and even doing tricks like famous figure skater Starr Andrews. But did you know ice skates weren’t always used for fun and sports?
Long ago, in a place called Finland, people faced a chilly problem. Finland has over 187,000 lakes! In the winter, these lakes would freeze, making it hard to travel across them. Walking on ice is slippery and tricky, so people had to walk all the way around the lakes, which took a long time.
To solve this problem, clever people in Finland came up with an idea. They started using animal bones as the first ice skates! They drilled holes in the bones and tied them to their shoes with leather straps. These bone skates helped them slide across the ice, saving time and energy.
Bone skates were used for thousands of years, but they were hard to control. Skaters had to use sticks to push themselves forward. Then, someone had a brilliant idea: why not use metal for the blades? Metal blades made it easier to glide and turn without needing a stick.
Over time, people improved ice skates even more. They sharpened the metal blades to make them slide smoothly over the ice. They also figured out how to attach the blades to boots with screws, so no more strapping them onto shoes!
Today, ice skates are super cool! Some even have a special part called a toe pick, which helps skaters stop and do amazing tricks. Who knows what ice skates will look like in the future? Maybe they’ll have motors!
So, the next time you see someone ice skating, remember the journey from animal bones to the awesome skates we have today. Ice skates have come a long way, and they continue to be a fun and exciting way to enjoy winter.
Thanks for joining this icy adventure! If you have more questions, like how batteries work or why cats purr, keep exploring and stay curious. There’s always something new to learn!
Ice Skating Experiment: Create your own mini ice rink at home! Fill a shallow tray with water and freeze it to make a small ice surface. Use small toys or figures to mimic ice skating. Observe how they slide across the ice and try to push them gently to see how far they can glide. Discuss with your friends or family why the toys slide easily on ice and how this relates to real ice skating.
Design Your Own Ice Skates: Imagine you are an inventor in ancient Finland. Draw a picture of your own ice skate design using materials you might find in nature, like bones, wood, or stones. Think about how you would attach them to your shoes. Share your design with your classmates and explain why you chose those materials.
Observe and Report: Next time you visit an ice rink or see someone ice skating, pay close attention to how they move. What do you notice about their skates? How do they use their body to glide, turn, or stop? Write a short report or draw a picture showing what you observed and how it connects to what you learned about the history of ice skates.
Sure! Here’s a sanitized version of the transcript:
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(phone rings) – Hi, it’s Jay. I grew up in Wisconsin, and in the wintertime, it would get really cold, but my friends and I didn’t mind because winter meant snow. We would build snow forts and have snowball fights. We’d sled down the hill across the street from my house. There are so many fun things you can do in the winter. Someone named Ray is curious about another fun winter activity. Let’s give Ray a call now. (phone rings) – Hi, Jay. – Hi, Ray. – I have a question for you. Who invented ice skates? – Ooh, that’s a great question. Ice skating is so much fun! You put on your skates, head to an ice rink or pond, and off you go, zooming across the ice. But you can do a lot more than just zoom. You can jump, twist, and do all sorts of tricks like Starr Andrews. She’s one of the best figure skaters in the world. Doing jumps and tricks on ice skates is a sport called figure skating, but figure skating isn’t the only thing you can do on skates. Before I go on, I’m curious. What are some other things you can do on ice skates? Now would be a good time to pause the video and discuss. Okay. Are you ready? I’m not sure what you answered, but some of you may have said you can play sports like hockey or speed skating. And you’re right! A lot of people play sports on skates. But do you know what? Ice skates weren’t invented to play sports. They were invented to solve a problem.
You’re looking at a country called Finland, and though we’re not totally sure, we think this is the area where some of the first ice skates were invented. See all the lakes? Finland has over 187,000 lakes. Whoa, that’s a lot! People use lakes for all sorts of different things. You can fish in them and get water from them. But thousands of years ago, lakes could also be a problem, especially in the winter when the water would freeze. In the summer, you could take a boat across the lake to go hunting or visit other villages or meet with friends. But in the winter, that was kind of hard to do. Sure, you could try to walk across the frozen lakes, but have you ever tried to walk on ice? It’s really slippery and difficult to walk on. You could slip and hurt yourself. So instead, people had to walk all the way around frozen lakes to get to the other side, and that could take a really long time, longer than going across.
We’re not sure exactly who it was, but the people around this area decided to try something. What if they put something on the bottom of their shoes so that they could slide across the ice? They probably tried a lot of things, but one thing that worked pretty well was bones. That’s right, bones. They drilled holes into animal bones and tied them to the bottom of their shoes with leather straps, kind of like what you see here. The bones they used were flat and oily, which meant they were really slippery, so they could slide across the ice really well. In fact, they slid too well in all different directions, which made it kind of hard to move forward or turn without falling down. (skater groans) So skaters had to use a stick to push forward and turn. Skates like these helped people who lived in the area of Finland a long time ago take shortcuts across lakes instead of going all the way around them. This saved a lot of time and energy, and over time, people in cold places all over the world started using them, places like the Netherlands. See all the canals? The Netherlands has a lot of them, and guess what happens in the winter? That’s right, they freeze. The people who lived here a long time ago started ice skating on those frozen canals to get around, kind of like we use freeways, but instead of cars, they would use skates. Pretty cool!
Now, bone skates were good, and people used them for thousands of years, but you may have noticed that our skates today aren’t made out of bones anymore, and there’s a good reason for that. Remember how it was hard to go forward or turn with bone skates, so you had to use a stick to push off and keep your balance? Well, we’re not sure exactly when, but after thousands of years, people thought of a way to make their ice skates easier to control. Instead of using bones for the blades, they started making the blades out of metal. They’d attach the metal to wooden blocks like this. The metal skates were a lot easier to control, but they didn’t stop there. After a while, some skaters started sharpening their blades so they could slide more easily over the ice than bone skates did. These sharp metal blades worked great, so great you didn’t need a stick to push off and turn anymore. Like the ice skates we’re used to today, you could just push off with your legs. So cool!
Over hundreds of years, people figured out more and more ways to make ice skates better. They figured out how to attach the blades to a boot with screws so you didn’t have to strap them onto your shoes anymore. And have you ever seen one of these? It’s called a toe pick. Toe picks were added to the tip of some ice skates to help skaters stop and do tricks like this. Who knows what ice skates will look like in the future? Will they have motors? I hope so!
So in summary, the first ice skates were invented thousands of years ago when people started strapping animal bones to their shoes to help them get around in the winter. But ice skates have come a long way since then, from sharp metal blades that slide easily over the ice to skates with toe picks that let you do tricks. That’s all for this week’s question. Thanks, Ray, for asking it. Now, we’ll be back with a new episode in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, here are some older questions from the question jar. You can vote on which one you think we should send out next week. You can choose from, how do batteries work? Why do cats purr? Or how are books made? So, submit your vote when the video’s over. We want to hear from all of you watching. There are mysteries all around us. Stay curious and see you next week.
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