Here are some fun experiments you can try to celebrate the festival of lights.
Lava lamp
> You will need:
> A tall glass or bottle
> Water
> Liquid food colouring
> Oil
> Antacid tablet
Fill three-fourths of a glass with oil and the rest with water, leaving some space on the top. Add a few drops of food colouring to the glass. Now drop in small pieces of the antacid tablet and watch the fun. Your glass/bottle will look similar to a lava lamp and can provide hours of entertainment!
Fireworks in a glass
> You will need:
> A tall glass
> Water
> Liquid food colouring
> Oil
Fill three-fourths of a glass with water. Then, pour a small quantity of oil in a flat container and gently add a few drops of food colouring into the oil so that they don’t touch each other. Using a spoon or fork gently break down the food colouring drops into smaller drops, taking care to ensure that the food colour drops don’t mix with each other. Now slowly pour the oil containing the little drops of food colouring over the water. Watch the food colour slowly going down into the water creating a firework in your glass!
What’s happening?
As you know, oil and water don’t mix. Furthermore, oil being less dense than water, tends to float. The liquid food colouring (which primarily contains water) and antacid are denser than the oil and sink to the bottom. Antacids contain sodium bicarbonate and citric acid. Both these chemicals react with each other, producing carbonic acid. When dropped in water, this carbonic acid decomposes and produces carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide bubbles attach to the food colouring making it buoyant and when this travels up through the oil, it gives the appearance of a lava lamp!
In the second experiment the firework effect is seen while the food colour slowly mixes with the water in a process that is known as diffusion.
Courtesy: The Science Factory, a scientific enrichment programme for kids. www.thesciencefactory.in
