Cool Homeschool Science Experiment - Building a Volcano

A volcano need not erupt from a mountain; in fact, there are many volcanoes that erupt in the sea. We live on the hard outer covering of the earth called the crust. Below the earth's crust there is a lot of molten rock called magma, which is less dense than the solid rock and therefore pushes upwards towards the earth's crust (just as a hot air balloon rises in the air). When the pressure gets high enough, the crust cracks and the magma or lava is spewed into the air. We will try to simulate this in our homeschool science activity today.

Although it can be dangerous to be around an erupting volcano, in this homeschool science experiment, I'll teach you how to make your own volcano at your home. I will teach you how to build a volcano mountain using dough and how to make it erupt using household materials that mom uses in the kitchen.

Do This Now!

The Bubbling Lava Volcano

The Mountain: Mix 6 cups of flour with 2 cups of salt and half a cup of vegetable oil. Add warm water as you mix the flour with your fingers. Knead till you get a stiff mixture, using which you can build your volcano mountain. Take a flat plate and stand a soda bottle in the centre of it. Now cover the soda bottle with dough on all sides putting more dough at the bottom of the bottle to make a mountain.

Leave the mouth of the bottle open. Leave for a day to dry. Once the dough turns hard, you can begin with your homeschool science experiment.

The Reactants: Fill the concealed soda bottle with warm water till it's almost full. Add some red or orange food coloring and a teaspoonful of liquid soap. Now add a quarter cup of baking soda to the mixture and stir using a thin stiff wire. Ask your friends to pay attention and slowly add vinegar till the concealed soda bottle is full. Stand back and watch the volcano overflow with bubbly red lava.

If your volcano experiment is part of a science fair, you would want to make it more realistic. In this case, I will teach you to make a volcano that looks like a real one. Let's call it the Landscape Volcano!

The Landscape Volcano

The Mountain: Dry-mix two cups of flour, one cup of sand, two cups of brown soil and one cup of salt in a bowl. Now add water slowly as you knead the whole mixture into stiff dough. Add more flour to make it stiffer. Now stand a soda bottle in the centre of a plate and build your volcano mountain around the bottle.

Now take a plywood board and place it on your table. Place the plate with the volcano over the board. Next, make sure you conceal the plate. You can do this by making some more dough and applying it all around your volcano and the plate to show that the mountain is continuous with the surrounding area.

You can also add artificial grass, rocks and other landscaping while the dough is soft in order to make the scenery realistic. Allow the whole setup to dry for about two days. Use the above-mentioned reactants to make the volcano erupt.

To get great science experiments and activities visit the free "Homeschool Parent's Guide to Teaching Science" at the link below.

A great free resource for really cool science activities and experiments is to download a copy of the Homeschool Science Experiment Guide.

Another good homeschool resource for science ideas, experiments and activities, is the homeschool science blog (just click on the "Blog" link). Definitely worth bookmarking.

Good luck!

About the Author
Aurora Lipper has been teaching science to kids for over 10 years. She is also a mechanical engineer, university instructor, pilot, astronomer, a real live rocket scientist (You should see the lab in her basement!) and a mom. She has inspired thousands of kids with the fun and magic of science.