As the last few weeks of the school year comes to an end, Keri planned to do an activity each day that starts with the letter of the Alphabet. One afternoon, as we landed on the letter L, the group decided to engage in STEM as they designed and created their very own Lava Lamps. To begin our experiment, we gathered the materials needed; cooking oil, food coloring, water, Alka Seltzer, clear drinking glasses, and eye droppers. Some of the children took turns pouring the oil into the plastic cups, while others chose which color mixture of food coloring and water they wanted to use, placing it into eye droppers to squirt it into the oil. They observed that the water formed little bubbles as it passed through the oil and sunk to the bottom of the glass. Next, the children added pieces of Alka Seltzer to the plastic cup and tried to predict what would happen.
They were amazed and excited to see that the colored bubbles started rising from the bottom to the top of the oil, popped and sunk back down to the bottom continuously. This reaction was due to the carbon dioxide gas that was created when all of the ingredients were mixed together with the water to carry the bubbles upward through the oil, and back down again creating the classic Lava Lamp effect.
