Take an unused tea bag ([wrinkles her nose] something icky like licorice) and empty it of its contents. (Just take out the staple, and unfold it.)
Open it up so that it will stand upright, as a cylinder.
Light the top of it on fire with a match or lighter.
Count down…
and then shwoosh!!!
Up it goes into the sky.
Have another one ready for back up, ’cause they’ll probably wanna see it again. And again.
_____
How it works: “Everyone knows that hot air rises and this experiment demonstrates that idea as well as the principles of convection currents. As the tea bag burns, hot air is being created, as well as a thermal, or convection current, under the bag. When the tea bag burns down into a small enough ball of ashes, the convection current causes it shoot up in the air.”
[Quoted directly from Steve Spangler Science.]
7 comments:
um...so what am I doing wrong. Mine just burned. It was quite unimpressive.
Jenny - when I transferred this post to this OLM, I lost the comments, so they're not here.
One person used a bag that was like cloth, instead of the paper-like ones.
Only the ones that are like paper will work.
THe paper is similar to the sort of paper that coffee filters are made out of.
Tried this today. Worked great. The kids were very surprised at the tea 'paper' rising up. Thanks for the idea!
I have been meaning to do this for ages!
Like this idea! Can you tell me why it takes off? Is there some sort of combustible? What's the chemical reaction??
Tina, the explanation is at the bottom of the post. It's convection.
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