Build Your Own Lava Lamps

Make this lamp only with adult supervision.

Build your own lava lamps.

Break open an oil soluble marker or pen and place the inked felt into a container of benzyl alcohol. This is a safe and fun science experiment you can do at home or in a classroom. Oil and water just do not mix. Remember that the colors will blend together so be careful of your mix.

Make an alka seltzer powered lava lamp from science buddies make your own lava lamp from science buddies create underwater fireworks with chemistry from scientific american. Make your own lava lamp. When the bubbles have stopped dribble a couple drops of food coloring into the bottle. Notice that the water sinks below the vegetable oil.

It s a lot of fun if you have a group of children and each child can have their own supplies. Lava lamp science project. I just made two different lava lamps using one color for each bottle. As the reaction slows down simply add more alka seltzer.

Children should show an adult these instructions and ask for help and not attempt this on their own. I ll show you two different ways to make your la. The alcohol and oil used in this lamp are flammable and must be treated with care when heating them to get the lava moving. Density is the measurement of how compact a substance is how much of it fits in a certain amount of space.

The food coloring droplets will fall through the oil and rest on top of the water. Lava lamps are both mesmerising and beautiful to look at and in this daily dose we re going to make our own. Add about 8 to 10 drops of food coloring. Watch what happens to the water with your kids.

It will sink slowly beneath the oil layer creating lots of bubbles. First fill the empty water bottle about 2 3 full with vegetable oil. Make your own lava lamp instructions. Then add water until there s around an inch remaining at the top.

The oil floats on the surface because the water is heavier has a higher density than oil. Easy to make lava lamp science experiment. Leaving it in longer will give a darker color but will also increase the tendency to bleed into the brine. A few minutes is usually a good time to leave the inked felt in the alcohol.

How to make the lava lamp. Fill the bottle two thirds full of oil. Commercial lava lamps use a proprietary combination of melted waxes. What you will need to make your lava lamp science experiment is in this picture.

A lava lamp works because of two different scientific principles density and polarity.