It's Science Week between the 15th and 24th of March and Crafts4kids.co.uk have a wonderful selection of kits to make science fun for kids! Have a look for yourself here http://www.crafts4kids.co.uk/science-kits/c42
We were sent the brilliant Kidz Labs Volcano Making Kit and it was fascinating to make. It's a rare opportunity when I get to drag my 10 year old son away from his Xbox, but if you have something like this kit to hand then with a few simple ingredients it doesn't take long to get to the nitty gritty that kids love!
The instructions that come with the kit were very clear and detailed, so each step of making the volcano was made very easy. The moulding and painting aspect of the kit is great to involve any children who love to get creative.
We've made a video to show how we got along with the kit:
And thereby we learn the destruction a simple chemical reaction can make!
So what did Master Craftiness learn?
So what did Master Craftiness learn?
- Master Craftiness learnt that the volcano erupting was actually a chemical reaction. This means that one substance (the vinegar) changes when the other substance (the bicarbonate of soda) is added to it.
- Vinegar is an ACID which REACTS with the bicarbonate of soda and GAS fizzes out, making it look like the volcano is erupting.
- A real volcano forms when MAGMA (hot liquid rock) collects in a chamber deep underground. As more and more magma flows in to the chamber, pressure gradually builds up until the magma is forced upwards through a narrow tube called a VENT. Then, like a shaken lemonade bottle, the ash, magma and burning gas burst through an opening in the surface of the Earth, creating a VOLCANIC ERUPTION.
- When the magma comes out of the ground it is called LAVA.
- LAVA is composed of liquid rock which flows out of the volcano.
- LAVA can travel very quickly or so slowly you can hardly see it moving.
- A lava flow burns everything in its path, until eventually it cools down again and turns in to solid rock.
- The cooled fragments are called TEPHRA which fall back to Earth, covering everything in ash.
Things I have learnt:
- To put a peg on my nose when dealing with this much vinegar.
- The Stromboli volcano in Italy has been erupting for the past 2,400 years.
- The largest volcano in the solar system is Olympus Mons on Mars.
- There are about 1,500 active volcanoes in the world, so as you're reading this there's probably a volcano erupting somewhere.
Our opinion: This was a great little kit to illustrate how much fun science can be and we both learnt some interesting facts about volcanoes.
