Ever wondered “how do clouds work?” Or why it rains? This easy science demonstration helps us to see what happens all the way up in the clouds. Easy to do and you probably have all the equipment you need already!

You will need:

• A glass
• Water
• Food colouring
• Shaving foam
• Pipette / dropper

 

Method:

• Fill the glass with water , leaving some space at the top. The water represents the sky.
• Put some shaving foam on top of the water, so it sits on top like a cloud.
• Fill a cup half full with water and add 10-20 drops of food colouring, depending on how dark you want the colour to be.
• Use your pipette/dropper to drip some of the coloured water onto the shaving foam ‘cloud’ until it gets too saturated and the coloured water starts to ‘rain’ into the jar!
• Use different colours or make lots of different clouds.

The Science Bit:

All air contains water, and as it rises into the sky it cools and then condenses around dust particles and forms droplets. When there are lots of these droplets together it forms a cloud. Clouds start to look grey when they get thicker as the light from the sun can’t get through as easily. When there are more droplets, some start to group together to make bigger droplets. When this happen they can get too heavy and gravity pulls them down as rain. If it is very cold the droplets may freeze into ice crystals, this is how we get snow.