Build your own Volcano

Transcript

Speaker 1: Hey, guys. We're here at the Science.gc.ca Team to bring you cool and exciting science experiments that you and your friends can try at home. Every experiment we provide you can be found online at science.gc.ca, and our seven activity books. Today we'll be exploring the behavior of a volcanic eruption. So let's give it an element of chemistry.

Speaker 2: So what you're going to need is some flour, and you're also going to need vinegar. You also need to grab some salt and liquid detergent, and make sure you also grab some cooking oil. You're going to need baking soda, and some food coloring, just so that you can dye it whatever color you guys are looking for.

Speaker 1: So now that you've bought all your ingredients, you're just going to mix them all together. So we have everything prepared, and now we're just going to mix it up.

Speaker 2: Okay, so now that you're done your batter, you're going to want to take your two-liter pop bottle, and you're going to want to cover it completely with the batter you just made, you can make it and shape it to look like a volcano or whatever you want to, and then we're going to get started with our lava now. So to make the lava, you're going to want to take your food coloring and place it in the bottle. You can put however much or whatever you guys want, and then after that, you're going to put some water. Thank you. So you've got the water in there, now we're going to want to add the detergent. Then once we've done that, we're going to want to put in our baking soda, and you only want to take about two tablespoons of this. So now that you have all your ingredients for the lava except the vinegar, we're going to go ahead and add the vinegar now. Once you add the vinegar, you're going to see it start to, like, bubble over and stuff, and that will be your chemical reaction. Do you want to hold it in place?

Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure.

Speaker 2: Thank you. Before the experiment, how come it erupted like that?

Speaker 1: So when baking soda is mixed with vinegar, a chemical reaction takes place and carbon dioxide is produced, the same gas that bubbles in real volcanoes. Since carbon dioxide is heavier than air, it pushes the air out of the bottle. The detergent in the bottle creates bubbles, and the food coloring adds color to the volcano. Although real volcanoes don't have the same ingredients as the one in this activity, their behavior is somewhat similar.

Speaker 2: So that's actually all the time we have today, but we really hope you learned something interesting and cool about volcanic behavior. If you like this video, be sure to give it a thumbs up, and stay tuned for any future experiments that we do at science.gc.ca. Thanks for watching.

Speaker 1: Bye.