Making Mini Lava Lamps With AAM At Coastal Fermentory in Newport News, Virginia
We are glad for the opportunity we had to hang out at Coastal Fermentory and meet such cool people!
We were able to share information about our Good Night Series with Newport News, VA! We sold several books, and Ad Astra Media is thankful for the support of local patrons.
Children learned about STEAM while they made mini lava lamps at our booth. Lava lamps are a great science experiment for children. Want to teach your child how they work?
Water molecules are polar molecules, which means that each end of the molecule has one positive charge and one negative charge. This allows the water molecules to bond together.
Oil molecules are nonpolar molecules, which means that they have no positive or negative charges.
Nonpolar molecules can only bond with other nonpolar molecules; they cannot bond with polar molecules. This is the reason why when you mix water and oil together, the water and oil do not mix.
If you put water and oil together, and shake it really hard, you force the water and oil molecules to bond together for a short time. This is called emulsion, which means "a mixture of liquids." Once the liquid containing polar and nonpolar molecules has rested, you can watch the molecules bond with their molecular pair.
Adding food coloring to the the mini lava lamps colors the water, making the water molecules easier to see as they separate from the oil. And it's great to make your mini lava lamp your favorite color! Be careful as adding the food coloring can color your fingers too!
Adding salt to your mini lava lamp will make that lava effect we're all so familiar with. The salt will fall to the bottom of the container bringing some oil down with it, forming what we know as "bubbles." Adding more salt will create more bubbles!
You can also create this effect with antacid tablets like Alka-Seltzer. The antacid tablets will sink to the bottom of the table and create an explosion of carbon-dioxide gas that will rise and fall quickly.
You can keep your lava lamp going as long as you add in salt or your tablets.
Science is so cool when you see it in action!
We couldn't leave out the Art in STEAM! We had coloring pages from our Good Night Series for children to spark their creativity with. Would you like to download our coloring pages? We'll have those available to the public for you to download soon! Want to know when they're released? Sign up for our newsletter and we will let you know!
We have many more events like this planned in the future. If you'd like to know when our next event will happen, subscribe to our newsletter and you'll be the first to know!
If you'd like to see more images from our Coastal Fermentory event, follow us on Instagram and Facebook!
To know more about our Good Night Little Astronaut book, click here!
To know more about our Good Night Little Doctor book, click here!
Ad Astra Media in partnership with @CoastalFermentory and IngramSPARK.