Whether you live in a snowy state, or you enjoy warmer weather year round, creating your own snowstorm in a jar is super fun and an easy way to learn about chemical reactions. You can whip up your own snowstorm with just a few ingredients.
What you need:
- A jar (any jar will do, but we like a medium sized one... think your standard spaghetti sauce jar)
- White tempera paint
- Baby oil
- Water
- Alka Seltzer
What you do:
- Add a little bit of white tempera paint to the jar.
- Dilute the paint with water and stir (approximately 1/3 paint and 2/3 water). You don't need too much... maybe an inch or so of the paint/water mixture!
- Fill the remainder of the jar with baby oil.
- Let the jar sit for a bit to let the baby oil bubbles rise to the top.
- Drop in an Alka Seltzer tablet and watch the snowstorm!
Understanding the Chemical Reaction Behind the Snowstorm
Alka Seltzer tablets are made of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), citric acid, and aspirin. When you add water to the tablets, the citric acid reacts with the baking soda to form sodium citrate (which neutralizes stomach acid when you drink it), water, and carbon dioxide bubbles. Those carbon dioxide bubbles form the cool snowstorm effect!
When you mix water (plus paint) and oil in the jar, the oil separates and rises to the top. Oil and water won’t mix since water is made up of polar molecules (molecules that have uneven electrical charges), and oil is made up of non-polar molecules. Water is also more dense than oil, so the water sinks to the bottom and the oil sits on top. This is why it's important to use water based paint for your snowstorm!
The Alka Seltzer is not reacting with the oil when you drop it in. Instead, it travels down to the water and paint level and begins to bubble. When the carbon dioxide bubbles rise up through the oil, they take some of the white paint and water along with them. The bubbles are lighter (less dense) than both water and oil. When the bubbles pop at the top, the paint water drops back down below the oil level again.
