Cloud In a Jar!!!

Little person loves carrying out science experiments at home. The issue is, sometimes the list of apparatus is long and extensive, meaning we need to go out and buy more than half the things....this also means we end up delaying the experiment and at times forgetting. Thus, I took time out and wrote a list of experiments we can carry out at home with very few items, or items we already have. 

Today was all about making a cloud in a jar. This experiment will certainly entertain little ones, and they'll express their amazement a fair few (hundred) times! 

Before the experiment

I like the idea of helping little person get into the habit of how experiments are written and carried out. Once he's a little older, he'll need to ensure he can clearly and happily write out experiments. At the beginning of a write up there is an introduction. An introduction will include an explanation and hypothesis followed by apparatus, method, results and conclusion. Even though I don't expect my 7 year old to be writing up experiments, I do believe it's a great idea to get him into the habit of what to do. 

We talked about the following important ideas for this experiment, so he understood what was happening:

• Evaporation/water vapour/steam
• precipitation 
• condensation

These are great discussion points for you and your child/ren, and you can add more detail if they're older. After the discussion we were ready to start!

What you need

It is a simple experiment, so simple in fact that you will only need 4 items, these are:

• Glass jar with a lid
• ice cubes (3 or 4)
• hairspray or room fragrance
• hot water 

We used room fragrance instead of hairspray.

Method and results

Add approximately 2cm of hot water in to the jar and swirl it around initially. This is to warm the jar up. Once that is done, add approximately 1/3 hot water in the jar and place the lid (upside down) on the jar. Place the ice cubes on the lid. After allowing it to sit for approximately 20/30 seconds, very quickly remove the lid and spray hairspray/room fragrance into the jar, quickly replacing the lid with ice back onto the jar. 

You will begin to see the cloud forming (and gasps of utter disbelief!). When the cloud looks like it has formed, remove lid to watch the cloud escape the jar! 

Exciting cloud formation 

Letting the cloud escape

Simple explanation for kids

Carrying out science experiments is the best way to teach children so much about the world and science around them. 

Some of the hot water in the jar turned to water vapour (the steam you can see when cooking). Water vapour is lighter than cool water, and therefore rises, once the vapour rose in the jar it came into contact with the very cold lid (with the ice cubes on top). This in turn, led to condensation (sometimes you can see condensation on windows during the winter months). Condensation is water vapour changing back to tiny droplets. In order to make a cloud we needed to add hairspray/room fragrance. That is because, when the water vapour rises on Earth, as the change happens (water vapour to condensation), the tiny droplets condense onto things in the atmosphere. This could be dust particles, volcanic ash, air pollution and so on. For our jar, to recreate nature, we added the fragrance, that acted like the dust, so the vapour had something to condense on. When a lot of these droplets from condensation come together you have a cloud. 

We thoroughly enjoyed carrying out this experiment, and hope you do too!