Lava Lamp Experiment

Supplies Needed:

Affiliate links below.

 ● Vegetable Oil
● Water
● Food coloring – ​primary colors​ or ​neon
● Original Alka Seltzer​ tablets

To begin, color about 1/2 cup of water with food coloring. I like using
these ​gel food colors​ for vibrant coloring.

Take the Alka Seltzer tablets and break them into 2 or 3 pieces. Place
them in a small cup or container.

Fill a glass about 3/4 full with vegetable oil. Then pour in the colored
water until the liquid in the cup is about 1-2 inches from the top.
You don’t want it to overflow! Well, unless you want to turn it into an
eruption experiment too. For this reason and quick cleanup, I like to do
this on a tray.
Let the children take turns adding a piece of an Alka Seltzer table to the
cup. *DO NOT let them put the tablet in their mouth at any time.

Why this Science Experiment Works

The water and oil do not mix and the oil doesn’t change color because
the food coloring is water-soluble. The Alka Seltzer reacts with the water
to make bubbles of carbon dioxide. The bubbles attach themselves to
the blobs of colored water and bring them to the top of the glass. When
the bubbles pop the blobs of colored waterfall back to the bottom of the
glass.

This lava science experiment is sure to WOW your kids. They may even
ask you to do it over and over again like mine did!
 Supplies Needed:

Affiliate links below.

● Printable recording sheets (button to download at the bottom

of the post)
● A large jar ​(I used a plastic one like this)
● Shaving cream​ (not a gel version)
● Gel Food coloring​ or ​washable watercolors
● Pipettes​ or ​droppers

Setting Up the Weather Experiment

1. In a small cup, mix the food coloring with some water.

2. Fill the large jar with water until it is about 3/4 full.
3. Place the jar and the cups of colored water on the table. Place
a pipette in each cup of colored water.
4. Right before the kids are ready to do the experiment, spray a
bunch of shaving cream in the jar until it is just a small bit
above the top of the jar.
Doing the Rain Cloud in a Jar Experiment

Ask the kids to pick up some colored water with a pipette and squirt it on
top of the shaving cream cloud. Repeat this step one or two more times,
but pay close attention to what is happening below the cloud!

The colored water will begin to seep down through the shaving cream
and into the water below. Just like rain!
How it Works

The shaving cream represents the clouds and the water represents the
air. The colored water represents rain. As the colored water saturates
the “cloud”, it gets heavy and eventually is so heavy that it can no longer
hold the water. It “rains” down into the jar – through the “air.” It is just like
real rain falls through the air.
This was a fantastic simple science activity to do with the kids (3 and 5).
So I think this would be a great one to do in the preschool classroom or
at home with your own kids.

If you are doing it with a class of students, I would suggest setting up

several jars and cups of colored water so that each child has a chance to
add some colored water to the jar.
Water Cycle in a Bag
Getting Ready 
I grabbed a Ziploc sandwich bag from our pantry and used a black Sharpie to draw a
sun, cloud and water.

Then I filled a small measuring cup with 1/4 cup of water and pulled out our blue food
coloring.

 
Big Brother carefully unscrewed the lid to the food coloring and squeezed four big drops
into the water.
Then Middle Brother slowly poured the now blue water into the Ziploc while Big Brother
held it open for him.
Big Brother ran his fingers along the seal several times to make sure it was closed tight
and then passed the bag over to me so that I could give it a double check.

When I was certain that it wouldn’t leak, we used tape to hang the bag on the window
and then sat back and watched it work.
The Science Behind It 
Since the Earth has a limited amount of water, it has to change around and around in
something called the water cycle.

Over the next few days, the boys saw the water warm in the sunlight and ​evaporate
into vapor.

As that vapor cooled, it began changing back into liquid ​{condensed} ​just like a cloud.

And when enough water condensed, the air couldn’t hold it anymore and the water fell
down in the form of ​precipitation​.

In the real water cycle, rain, sleet or snow might land in a body of water like a river or
ocean. But it also might fall on dirt where it soaks into the soil and either becomes
groundwater that animals and plants drink or it runs over the soil and falls into rivers,
oceans or lakes {aka ​collection​}.