This quarter, Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd graders will get a chance to run the show in the afterschool STEM club! Tuesday, things got groovy when we made lava lamps out of water, oil, food coloring, and Alka Seltzer tablets!

While making our super cool lava lamps, we discussed why they work.
● Oil floats on top of the water because it isn’t as dense as water.
● Water also doesn’t like oil (it’s hydrophobic), so it will always stay separate even if we mix it with a spoon.
● Oil is also more viscous (thicker) than water, so that’s why it pours so much slower in comparison.
● The Alka seltzer tablets dissolve and create a gas (the bubbles) which is how we get our neat-o balls of lava.

We will continue to learn about density as we make density jars this Thursday and experiment with suspending different objects in each layer. It is always an adventure with these scientists, and I can’t wait to see what observations they will continue to make!

Students followed the steps to create their lava lamps and observed the changes.

Some students noticed a change in the smell of their lava lamp once they added the Alka Seltzer.