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Thursday, March 19, 2015

Weekly Science Experiment #11

Wanna be a super cool mom?  Maybe you are already confident in your super coolness, but if your ego needs a little boost than give this Rain Cloud science experiment a try.  My kids thought it was the coolest thing we have done all year and it took, at the MOST, 5 minutes.  You only need three things: a clear container mostly full of water (taller and narrower is best), regular shaving foam, and food coloring (any color will work, but blue seems more rain-like).
 First we talked for just a minute about where the water in clouds comes from and also how the water vapor condenses around dust particles.  To simulate the cloud we sprayed a nice pile of shaving cream on the surface of the water.
 Next we started squirting food coloring on the top of the cloud.  This is a great way to use up those one-quarter full containers of coloring that you have laying around (I had three, which worked out great).
 Eventually the shaving foam can't hold any more food coloring (just like a cloud can't hold any more water),
 and it starts raining out the bottom.  It was at this point that my kids got rather excited and mentioned words like "super" and "cool" and "great" and "awesome."
 In the end they couldn't resist playing with the blue shaving foam left overs and made a bit of a mess, but blue faces and fingers are a small price to pay for science experiment success.
Happy rain making, everyone.

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