Today we made lava lamps in Science class – so much fun! Some of my students had already made them, but they were still excited to do them again. The best part? They were super easy to make!
I had each student bring in a water bottle. You also need vegetable oil (I needed 3 bottles for a class of 23 students), food coloring, a funnel and water.
Step 1: Fill the bottle 2/3 of the way with water. I had the students fill it to the bottom of the label.
Step 2: Choose your color(s). If the students wanted blue, green, yellow or red, they added 2 drops of food coloring. If they wanted to mix colors, they did 1 drop of each. Purple was a popular color with 1 drop of red and 1 drop of blue. I don’t recommend yellow because it is a very similar color to the vegetable oil.
Step 3: Fill the bottle with vegetable oil (1/3 of the bottle). I did this part because we didn’t have a good funnel to use. Even I made a bit of a mess!
Step 4: Place the cover on the bottle (tightly!).
Check out these bubbles!!
The students then move the water bottle around as the bubbles move around. They are fascinated by the water and oil staying separate.
I just did some research and discovered that you can take the experiment a step further by adding an Alka-Seltzer tab to really watch the bubbles move! Here is a link to Science Kids for the complete experiment.
