How to Make a Lava Lamp

Have you ever wanted to make your own lava lamp? If so, all you need are a few things from around the house. It's another experiment that might get you and your family "Hooked on Science."

Video Transcription

Jason Lindsey: Have you ever wanted to make your own lava lamp? Well you can. And all you need are a few things around the house. Some oil from the kitchen, not from the car. Ashton, my science helper here, don't go drain Dad's car to get the oil for you need some cooking oil. Fill it about three quarters of your bottle. Okay, you are going to need some water from the tap, some Alka-Seltzer, and some food coloring. Can you say, Go science? Ashton: Go Science. Jason Lindsey: What's your favorite science project that you have ever done? Ashton: Making a Volcano. Jason Lindsey: Volcano, everybody loves the volcanoes. Do you ever make it make it spew up and shoot into to the ceiling, like a massive volcano? No. You want to add something to it to make it explode. Just make sure it's safe, okay. So we have brought the oil and here are three quarters of the way. The last part we are going to fill with water. See the water. Obviously this proves that what doesn't mix oil and? Ashton: Water. Jason Lindsey: Water. There we go. Put that in there like that. Your favorite color is what? Ashton: Blue. Jason Lindsey: Let's put some blue food coloring drops in there. Just drop a few inside of the container there for me. Drop an amount of few, let's do a few more. Just squeeze it. Bunch goes in there. Now let's drop some red in there. Here we go. We will put a bunch in there. Next we are going to take the Alka-Seltzer. You hold one, I hold the other. Drop it in for me. Drop those in. We are going to screw the top on and observe and see what happens. Watch what happens? Look at that. That's pretty cool. We have our lava lamp glowing there. There is your blue, there is the red on the inside, if you just tuning in to the Hooked On Science segment, we created our own lava lamp by using some cooking oil, some water, food coloring and Alka-Seltzer. Don't forget to go to www.hookedonscience.org and get all the details on this experiment and a whole lot more that you can try it off.