As part of our Geography topic Year 3 have enjoyed creating our own volcanos! In D&T we used plastic bottles and papier mache to create the structures before exploding them!
Volcanos are some of the most powerful forces shaping the Earth. Eruptions spew molten hot lava, touching everything in its path. The ash and rock explosions can carry for miles, blacking out the sun and coating civilization and wildlife.
We created a simple chemical reaction so our volcanos erupted with bubbly, fizzy liquid. The vinegar reacted with the baking soda making carbon dioxide gas form and the bubbles pushed the “lava” out the “volcano” creating a realistic explosion!
Have a look at the steps we took
Before there can be an eruption, we needed to build a volcano.
We started by laying down our cardboard box to use as the base.
Next, we placed our plastic bottle in the middle and began to create our volcano frame using balls of newspaper and securing it together with a few pieces of masking tape.
Then it was time for papier mache! It was quite sticky! We dipped each strip of newspaper in the glue mixture and layered this over our volcano frame. It took a while until we finally had a lovely cone shape for our volcano.
Once our papier mache had dried we painted our volcano for a realistic effect. Red and brown, yellow and orange were the most popular colours.
Finally it was time for the eruption. We added warm water, food red colouring (for realistic lava colour), a squirt of washing up liquid, baking soda to the bottle. When we were ready for the eruption, we poured in the vinegar and watched it blow!
Safety Tip!! We picked a spot that’s easy to clean up and went outside!
Fantastic job Year 3!
Recent Comments