For a fun and easy science experiment that explores weather – try this Rain Cloud in a Jar experiment. Kids can learn how it rains through this fun and engaging science experiment. This is a great activity for preschool and elementary kids. They will love seeing their “rain” fall from the cloud!
Kids love doing this easy science experiment. Not only is it a fun activity but it’s a great learning exercise too. They also get to practice fine motor work by using a pipette or dropper.
Try this experiment the classic way using only blue food coloring, or switch it up and make a rainbow rain cloud in a jar.
The Science
Cloud formation happens when water vapor rises into the air. When this vapor hits cold air, it turns into tiny droplets of water. These droplets start to stick together and form clouds. When the clouds get full of water that they can’t hold anymore, the water falls down as rain.
In this experiment, the clouds are the shaving cream and the food colored water is the rain. As you drop the colored water into the cloud the weight of the water forces itself through the cloud to “rain” down into the jar.
Supplies Needed to Make a Rain Cloud in a Jar
– Clear Vase or Mason Jar
– Shaving Cream
– Food Coloring Gel (one in each color of the rainbow) – we like to use this liquid food coloring gel since it’s concentrated and makes the colors really vibrant
– Droppers – if you want to do the rainbow of colors, you’ll need 6 droppers to separate out the colors
– Water
– Small Bowls for the Food Coloring
Watch the Video Tutorial Here!
How to Make a Rain Cloud in a Jar
1. Add a few drops of food coloring gel for each color (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) into a small bowl for each color. Add a little bit of water to dilute it, but not too much to keep the colors vibrant. Add a pipette into each bowl of food coloring.
2. Fill your vase or mason jar about 3/4 full of water.
4. Now you can start dropping your “raindrops” into the vase or jar. The drops will slowly make their way through the “clouds” into the water. If you find they are not dropping down, you can also push the pipette a little bit more into the shaving cream (but be careful not to push too far or you’ll end up in the water).
Kids can have fun mixing up the colors they add to the jar. Or they can try adding the colors in the order of the rainbow to make a rainbow version!
To make the rainbow version, you will need 6 bowls (one for each color – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple). Then quickly add each color in the order of the rainbow.
We love how easy this science experiment is to set up. And kids love to use the droppers to make it “rain”.
The rainbow version is a lot of fun to try too! We hope you enjoy this easy science experiment!
The coloured water represents rain. As the coloured water saturates the “cloud”, it gets heavy and eventually is so heavy that it can no longer hold the water. It “rains” down into the jar through the “air” in the same way that real rain falls through the air.
In this experiment, the alcohol acts like the dust, providing something cool for water droplets to attach to. When you pressurize the soda bottle by pumping air in, the air molecules collide with each other and warm the bottle. Releasing the pressure causes the water vapor to condense quickly, forming a cloud.
Fill your glass or jar nearly to the top with tap water. Make a great, big rain cloud of shaving cream on top of the water. Drip the diluted food coloring onto your cloud and watch the rainstorm of color. Note: Color may take a minute or more to seep through your cloud.
When the cloud gets too heavy, the drops fall through as rain! Explain to your child that when water droplets grow heavy in the sky, gravity pulls them down from the clouds as rain, just like in the experiment.
In a cloud, droplets come together with other droplets to form larger drops of water. Eventually, the drops become too heavy to stay in the cloud. They fall to Earth as rain. Then the water cycle begins again.
The physical aspect: the candle heats the air and expands it. This cancels the depletion of the oxygen temporarily and the water level stays down. When the oxygen is depleted, the candle goes out and the air cools.The volume of the air decreases and the water rises.
Place the cup over the opening of a glass jar. Fill the plastic cup with cotton balls or crumpled up paper towels. Pour water into the plastic cup. Once the cotton balls or paper towels get saturated, rain will start to fall into the glass jar.
Place several ice cubes onto the lid, and allow it to rest on the top of the jar for about 20 seconds. Remove the lid, quickly spray a bit of hairspray into the jar, and then replace the lid with the ice still on top. Watch the cloud form.
Rain occurs when air rises into the upper atmosphere and cools. The cool temperatures cause water vapor to condense into water droplets, which fall from the clouds as rain when the air becomes saturated. Air pressure contributes to this process.
In your jar, the heat from the boiling water contributed the water vapour, which evaporated (changed from liquid to gas) from it. As the hot air rises, it hits the cold ice cubes, causing it to condense (change from gas to liquid).
Water moves between it's three phases, liquid water, ice, and water vapor, based on temperature. The hot liquid water evaporates into water vapor, and rises to the top of the jar. There, it hits the cold from the ice and turns back into water, melting down the jar like rain.
In clouds, tiny particles of water vapor start to condense around dust or dirt particles. As these droplets move around, they get bigger as they bump into more particles, kind of like raindrops on a windshield.
Within a cloud, water droplets condense onto one another, causing the droplets to grow.When these water droplets get too heavy to stay suspended in the cloud, they fall to Earth as rain. Come to think of it, what makes it snow, hail, and sleet? All these forms of water don't fall out of a clear, blue sky.
Clouds are composed of liquid suspended water droplets in about a 100% RH environment. The three primary ways that clouds dissipate is by (1) the temperature increasing, (2) the cloud mixing with drier air, or (3) the air sinking within the cloud.
The hot water at the bottom of the jar represents bodies of water on earth. Just as water evaporates from lakes, oceans, and other bodies of waters, the boiling water becomes vapor. B. As it cools in the top of the jar, where the clouds are drawn, you see the process of condensation and the jar begins to fog.
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Introduction: My name is Maia Crooks Jr, I am a homely, joyous, shiny, successful, hilarious, thoughtful, joyous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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