The Lava Lamp is made using oil and water. Oil and water do not mix as they have different densities. Oil has a lower density than water so it will settle on top of the water. This means that the oil is lighter for its size.
To make the lava lamp the first thing that you need to do is pour some water into your plastic bottle. You will want to pour water about 2/3 of the way up the bottle
You will next want to add your oil. You can pour in the remaining 1/3 of the bottle up with oil. You should see that the oil will settle on top of the water. You can add the oil first and then add the water if you would like to. Even if you do this the oil will still settle on top of the water.
You can now add some food colouring to the bottle. You will see that the food colouring travels through the layer of oil and settles in the water layer as the food colouring has the same density as water.
The last thing that you need to do is add your alka saltza or fizzy vitamin tablet to your bottle. As soon as the tablet is added to the water a reaction starts to happen as the tablet dissolves. Bubbles of carbon dioxide are produced and these bubbles are lighter than the water and the oil so they start to travel to the top of your bottle to the air on the surface. As the bubbles of carbon dioxide travel to the surface, they take a small amount of water with it. When the carbon dioxide reaches the surface it floats away but the water becomes heavier without the carbon dioxide so it starts to sink down through the oil layer. So you are seeing bubbles rising and falling through the bottle to make your lava lamp until all of the tablet is dissolved and the reaction is complete
The video tutorial for this activity is available on the Surrey Libraries Facebook Page or the Surrey Libraries YouTube Channel
No comments:
Post a Comment