A single rain cloud can equal the weight of 100 elephants! You’re probably wondering how a cloud can stay up in the air if it’s that heavy, and that’s through the power of science! Today, we’re going to use whipped cream, water, and blue food coloring to see what a rain cloud looks like as it forms, and when we’re done, we can eat the rain cloud!
Supplies:
Clear glass
Water
Whipped cream (any brand is okay as long as it is in a can!)
Blue food coloring
A placemat
Napkin
Or plate to put underneath your glass
Activity Steps:
Before we fill our cup with water, make sure you have all of your materials for easy access! We are going to want to have our food coloring, whipped cream can, and glass cup in front of us on top of something like a napkin or a placemat for easy clean-up! It would be best to make your workstation somewhere like your kitchen or dining room table.
Step 1: First, we are going to put water into your cup! It is important that the cup we use is see-through so we can see the ‘rain’ come down from our whipped cream cloud! Be sure to leave a ping-pong ball sized amount of room for our cloud when pouring the water into your cup. We will need to have about a ping-pong ball sized amount of room for our cloud, which will be made with the whipped cream, so make sure to leave enough space at the top!
Speaking of clouds, did you know that one cloud equals the weight of one-hundred elephants? That’s a heavy cloud! A cloud can stay in the air through the power of science!
Step 2: Next, place the cup of water into your workstation and shake your whipped cream can a few times! This will help get the whipped cream out of the can! Tip your whipped cream upside-down and spray the nozzle in circles on top of your water to form a cloud shape. You want the whipped cream to sit on top of the water and go over it like a mountain of clouds, but make sure to not spray too much where the whipped cream is overflowing!
Step 3: Finally, you are going to get out your blue food coloring! This is what we will use to make the rain fall from our whipped cream cloud. Be careful with your blue food coloring, and make sure you wash your hands if you get it on you! Unscrew the lid of the food coloring and be careful to only add a few drops! After a few minutes, your water should turn blue from the rain pouring down from the whipped cream cloud! When you finish this activity, make sure the food coloring is completely closed and somewhere where it can’t tip over.
Rain falls down from clouds at the speed of up to 20 miles per hour - that’s almost as fast as a brown bear! Before rain falls down, bodies of water will evaporate, or in other words, turn into a gas, one of the three states of matter! This warm gas will then rise into the sky, turning into a cooler temperature and back into a liquid. This is what forms raindrops. One raindrop is as small as a housefly! Imagine millions of houseflies pouring down on you every time it rained! That would be silly!
We hope you enjoyed watching rain fall from the clouds! When the rain is done falling from the clouds, enjoy eating the cloud!
~Made by Sami O.