? Science with Sarah: Baby oil lava lamps ??

? Watch the video of Sarah’s school science experiment here!

Hello parents, teachers and students! If you’re looking for a fizzy, fun experiment, look no further! Making these baby oil lava lamps will teach your students about mixtures, solutions, and density.

Be sure to check out GMSA@9 on Wednesdays when Meteorologist Sarah Spivey does the demonstrations and explains the science behind it.

Science with Sarah: Invite KSAT to your school for live science experiments. (KSAT)

HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL NEED

Clear plastic or glass bottles (smooth sides preferred). For fun, I used an Erlenmeyer flask to make this experiment look more science-y ?

Baby oil

Food dye

Alka-Seltzer tablets

DO THE EXPERIMENT

STEP 1: Fill the bottle about 3/4 the way with baby oil

STEP 2: Add some water and watch it sink to the bottom

STEP 3: Put a few drops of food dye into the bottle. The dye should sink to the bottom and mix with the water

STEP 4: Add an Alka-Seltzer tablet to the bottle. The gas should cause the colored water to rise and bubble up throughout the baby oil

HOW IT WORKS

This is a good example of solutions, mixtures, and density.

DENSITY: The water and food dye are more dense than water, so they sink to the bottom of the bottle.

MIXTURE: Water and oil do not mix into a solution, so the colored water stays separate from the baby oil. Thus, the baby oil and the colored water form a mixture, rather than a solution.

SOLUTION: The Alka-Seltzer tablet contains sodium bicarbonate and citric acid which produces carbon dioxide gas when mixed with the colored water.