Tornado in a Bottle Science Projects
Demonstrating how a tornado is formed is very easy to do in the classroom. There is a very simple experiment that you can do to show students how a tornado is formed and sustained by using some simple supplies found in your home. This experiment will help students learn how tornadoes are formed in a fun and educational way.
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Materials Needed
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You will need two identical, clear 2-liter bottles. You can get these from any grocery store that sells soda. Simply empty out the soda and remove the labels from the bottle. You can use warm water and soap to remove any residual adhesive left on the back of the bottle's label. You will also need some duct tape or electrical tape. Some optional supplies include silicone caulking, bottle fitted pipe, and food coloring or glitter.
Assembly
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Fill one of the bottles two-thirds of the way full with clear tap water. Or, you can add some food coloring or glitter to the mixture to make it more colorful, but this does not necessarily help the overall progress of the experiment. Then, set the other identical bottle with its neck resting on top of the filled bottle's neck, and wrap the two necks together with duct or electrical tape. You should circulate the necks at least 10 times with the tape to ensure stability. Alternatively, you can use silicone caulking before wrapping the necks with the tape to make it even more stable.
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Experiment
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Turn the bottles over so that the filled bottle is on top. Eventually, the mixture will become a swirling tornado because of the drain effect. However, to give it a little boost, you can swirl the two bottles from the top to give it a nice head start in the tornado process. You can even pass this around to the class to show how easy it is to make a tornado.
The Science
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The water on top is caused to form a tornado because of the drain effect where the water is being forced to siphon through a bottle neck to get to the bottom bottle. This is similar to the process of how tornadoes are formed where two air masses collide and try to occupy the same area. This, in turn, causes a tornado. Dye or glitter in the water can help demonstrate this further by showing the process of the two water forces colliding.
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References
- Photo Credit Digital Vision./Digital Vision/Getty Images
