How to Make Clouds in the Classroom

You can make clouds in a classroom using basic materials.

If you are going to be teaching a science class about weather patterns and climate, you can provide your students with exciting interactive experiments that will demonstrate elements of the lesson rather than simply have the children hear about them. For example, you can make a cloud inside a bottle to demonstrate how air pressure is a major factor in creating and developing different weather patterns and climatic changes around the world.

Things You'll Need

• Empty 2 liter soda bottle
• Rubber stopper
• Pen knife
• Foot pump
• Rubbing alcohol

Instructions

1. Place five or six drops of rubbing alcohol into the bottom of an empty 2-liter soda bottle. Swirl the alcohol around the bottle to coat the sides.

2. Cut a slit into a rubber stopper and slide the end of a foot pump tube into it.

3. Insert the rubber stopper into the opening of the soda bottle.

4. Pump air into the soda bottle, which will cause the pressure inside the bottle to greatly increase. This increase in pressure will create a cloud inside the bottle.

5. Remove the rubber stopper from the bottle to release the cloud into the classroom.

References

• Steve Spangler Science: Cloud in a Bottle