Lava Jars {Hands on Science}

Last fall my son and I made a fun project together, we called them lava jars as they were inspired by lava lamps and we had a ton of baby food jars on hand. Harp was emptying out at least 6 a day back then.

I first filled the jar with half water, half baby oil. We added a few drops of food  coloring to the mixture, closed the lids tightly and watched to see what would happen.

We decided that this jar was the ocean based on color and the imagination
of a 4 year old

There was some slight bubbling, but nothing major.

We agreed the jars were neat... but what could we do to make them react differently?

We both liked the color of this jar the best.

We went inside and looked around. We found some antacid tablets and decided to introduce them into the mix to see how the oil/water jar reacted.

We started to notice bubbles forming right away. It definitely simulated a lava lamp!

I made a really short little video demonstration of the reaction of adding the antacid to the oil/water mixture.

My son had fun with this project. It was a fun challenge to see what we could do with common household products, and it was even more fun to engage him in a science project.  We think these would be fun with glow in the dark stuff inside. We hope to try this again in a few months with that idea.