Day 8 of Summer: Build a Volcano

This post is part of the Mom Buzz Days of Summer series. The Mom Buzz will be posting summer ideas to keep your kids busy, as well as her own.

Last week, my husband took a day off from work to help me bring the kids to the dentist. After that we had icecream at DQ, made lunch at home and then made little volcanoes. It’s just another fun idea of what you can do this summer!

The idea came from Dow Chemical and The Franklin Institute (TFI), who have produced three videos showcasing three different at-home experiments you can do as a family and use as a way to get kids and students excited about the power of chemistry and science in their everyday lives. The three videos show how to:

• erupt a baking soda volcano
• uncover the chemistry of blood
• how chemistry is involved in the game of baseball

The experiment I was most interested in was erupting a baking soda volcano. First off, we needed the “volcano”. I simply used construction paper to make a pyramid-ish object. You could also do paper-mache or modeling clay. You can get as detailed as you want. The rest of the ingredients needed for the explosion are probably things you have at home, which make this really simple.

• Food coloring – Red & Yellow
• 1 ounce of white vinegar
• 2 teaspoons of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of liquid hand dishwashing soap
• Teaspoons – not copper
• Small glasses or Baby Food Jars to fit into the volcano

Procedure:

1. Put the small jar into the volcano.
2. Add 2 teaspoons of baking soda
3. In separate jar, mix 1 ounce of vinegar, 1 teaspoon of the soap and 5 drops each of red and yellow food coloring. Stir this solution carefully.
4. Add the vinegar mixture to the baking soda jar that’s in the volcano and watch the reaction.

You can make predictions of what it will look like when it comes out. Will it be fast or slow? Ooze or bubbly? How red or yellow will it be?

My boys LOVED making their volcanoes “erupt”. We ended up doing it FIVE TIMES EACH outside. Even my husband had fun creating his own mixture. You can even start varying the food colors, the amounts of ingredients, different shaped/sized glasses and the order you do it to see what happens differently each time.

Here is the video from Dow and the Franklin Institute so you can follow along and do your own experiment.

For more information, you can also go to www.Dow.com/IYC or www.Chemistry2011.org.

Other Summer Ideas:
Day 1 of Summer: Summer Experiments
Day 2 of Summer: Pretend Play
Day 5 of Summer: Summer Picnic

This is solely the opinion of the Mom Buzz. Other people may have different experiences with the product. And don’t forget to enter my other hot contests so you can win and try buzzworthy products! The Mom Buzz received a Gift Card to share the news above.