I don't Know Where I'm Gonna Go When the Volcano Blows

We have been talking about dinosaurs and volcanoes in the classroom. Beth visited Hawaii and brought back some real photos and video from her trip, which included a day trip up on Kilauea, one of Hawaii's to active volcanoes. 

In the classroom, we made a model volcano together and used the explosive mixture of baking soda and vinegar to make it erupt.

We started with a medium glass vase to function as the magma chamber and crater of the volcano. We used play dough to build the structure of the mountain around the crater. Then, we covered the outside in modeling clay, which will hold up to repeated lava eruptions better than play dough on its own. 

Once the volcano was finished, we put a bunch of plastic dinosaurs at the base. This is reminiscent of the one of the theories that an asteroid hit the earth and caused the dinosaurs extinction. Part of that theory is that the asteroid blast set off a number of volcanic eruptions that helped in the dinosaurs' demise.

Once we had our dinosaurs in place, we put baking soda in the crater (and into the glass vase). Next, we put food coloring and vinegar in a plastic cup. Each child was allowed to decide what color lava they wanted to make when it was their turn to pour in the vinegar. By the end, we were mixing colors to see what would come out. 

Then we poured the vinegar in and here is the exciting result. 

We will have the volcano erupting as long as it is still holding the kids' interest in the science area all next week.