Homemade Lava Lamp

You will need:

an empty bottle

oil

water

food coloring

Alka Seltzer tablets

heavy duty glue (optional)

• Fill the bottle about 2/3 to 3/4 full with oil. We used canola oil but mineral oil or baby oil- since they are colorless, would give a better visual contrast with the colored bubbles.
• We used an empty 17 ounce bottle from a Sparkling ICE beverage.
• Fill to nearly the top with water. Notice, water is denser than oil and will sink to the bottom.
• Add 1 drop of food coloring for every 3 ounces of fluid.
• We added 6 drops of blue neon food coloring. Wait for the drops to make their way down through the oil and spread into the water at the bottom.
• Break one Alka-Seltzer tablet into four pieces. Add each piece, one at a time until the bubbles have subsided.
• You can either screw on cap with the intention of greating more lava flow later by adding more Alka-Seltzer or glue on your cap and enjoy the colored bubbles after shaking.

Note: There are really 2 projects here. The first is the process of creating a flow of bubble through a chemical reaction. The second is the product you will be left with. The lava/bubble flow during the process portion can not be replayed without adding more chemicals (Alka-Seltzer). However, we capped ours and found that many bubbles remained after the process and we still had a cool sensory bottle to enjoy. If the bubbles die out altogether, we can turn our bottle on its side and we will have a great ocean in a bottle- since we colored it blue.

A chemical reaction occurs when adding water to the sodium bicarbonate and citric acid in the Alka-Seltzer tablet- This chemical reaction creates carbon dioxide gas bubbles which rises and bring droplets of water with them (blue bubbles). As the gas escapes when it makes it to the top the water sinks back to the bottom.

This sensory botttle offers a very soothing visual effect after the cap is glued. Additionally, children learn to wait. Shaking over and over in a short period of time will not yield the same results as waiting for the contents to settle each time before shaking.

Do you have any experience creating a homemade lava lamp?
We would love to hear from you!