I will begin by acknowledging that until now, this has not been the sort of blog where I exhort you to go out and purchase a box of Alka-Seltzer post haste. But folks, that is all about to change. I'm not sure how many of you are already familiar with Steve Spengler Science, but if you are at all the sort of person who likes to make reasonably sized messes out of household items in the name of scientific experimentation, you probably should be. Mariam has to present a science experiment in class this afternoon, so yesterday we tried these homemade lava lamps thinking they were a possible contender. Well, they win.
The basic idea is this: you mix 3 parts oil with one part water and ten or so drops of food coloring in a container with a tight fitting lid. At first, the food coloring will just kind of sit in tiny blobs at the bottom of your container, attaching itself to the water as it sinks.
The food coloring will start to become a little more diffuse, but will still generally hang out in the bottom part of the container. But then...
You start adding the Alka-Seltzer and...
The jar turns into a do-it-yourself lava lamp! Once the bubbling from the Alka-Seltzer has stopped, put a lid on the jar and turn it in different directions to see big, fun blobs of color move around. I suspect it would be awesome to look at with a flashlight in the dark as well.
To read more about the details of the experiment as well as why it works, check out this page on the Steve Spengler website. I think that there is even a fun video to go along with the whole deal. Enjoy!
