Snowcano

So much ice and snow I've really been exhausting every bright idea this year to keep the kids busy in our yard. Today we took science outside, it was super simple, a great way to highlight chemical reactions to the kids and all the ingredients I already had in my cupboards.

You will need:

Baking soda
Vinegar
Food coloring (red)
Washing up liquid
Plastic bottle (we discovered the one photgraphed here was a bit big, we repeated the experiment with a smaller bottle and got far more Lava for the kids to see)
A funnel (Helps but not essential)

Step 1

Add about 3 tbl spoons baking soda, a few drops of food coloring and approx 1 tbl spoon dish soap to the plastic bottle.

Step 2

Go outside and build a snow mound around the bottle leaving the opening poking out the snow.

Step 3

Use funnel to pour about 4 tbl spoons vinegar into bottle. This does not have to be exact we free poured and added a little more afterwards.

Stand back and watch your volcano erupt. The science behind it : the baking soda (alkali) reacts with the vinegar (acid) and creates a gas. This gas causes the dish soap to foam and with the red food coloring you get 'Lava'.