Showing Separation in the Ocean in a Bottle Experiment

Video Transcript

" Hi this is Scott Thompson from expertvillage.com, and today I'm going to demonstrate a way to build an ocean in a bottle, and demonstrate that some solutions just do not mix. Looking at this salad dressing bottle that has been sitting there for a few minutes now, you can see how it is beginning to reclassify itself. Oil is slowly working its way to the top, pushing, displacing the water to the bottom. It won't be much longer and it will be a solid line, clearly a demarcation—show the two solutions. This is one of the test tubes that I gave a good shaking about 5 minutes ago, and at that time it was the same color throughout—just a light blue. Now it is beginning to separate back. It is just a fun thing to do with a classroom of kids if you have the chance, because you can have them all shake their oceans before they go to recess and then put them on the window sill. And 15-20 minutes later, when they come back, they will have the look of this. They will all be separated again and you can talk about the different properties of the solutions."