We have been studying snowflakes.  As a culminating experience, we conducted an experiment to see if we could each create a crystal snowflake.  We talked about how snowflakes start as a speck of dust, and as they travel through the clouds ice crystals begin to form.  Likewise, we hoped the same would happen with our crystals.  We started with a pipe cleaner, submerged in water with Borax dissolved in it.  It was our hope that as the pipe cleaner sits in the water, crystals would begin to form.  We let them sit over night in the water/borax solution, and had a pretty great result when we pulled them out.