Have you ever wondered how clouds form? We all learn the water cycle in school – water falls from the clouds in the form of rain or snow and collects on the ground. The water on the ground heats up and turns to vapor and the vapor travels up into the atmosphere and creates clouds.
But how do those clouds form? Here’s an experiment that demonstrates how the water molecules join together and form a cloud.
Before you start on your own cloud, let’s learn a little more about clouds.
A cloud is a lot of droplets of water and or ice crystals, depending on the temperature. The droplets float in the air molecules.
Even though we don’t see them, water molecules are in the air all around us. These airborne water molecules are called water vapor. When the molecules are bouncing around in the atmosphere, they don’t normally stick together.
Clouds on Earth form when warm air rises and its pressure is reduced. The air expands and cools, and clouds form as the temperature drops below the dew point. In other words, cold air cannot hold as much water vapor as warm air. Invisible particles in the air in the form of pollution, smoke,
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Q: Tell us a little about who you are… A: I am a very personable and outgoing person who loves to make the best out of every situation. I feel as though no man or woman is better than the next and that we all need to work close to one another to really expand our horizons in life. Having the privilege to work for such a great company has allowed me to have a multitude of opportunities that I never thought were possible or that I would ever even come across in my life. I have been with the company now for 3 1/2 years and still wake up every morning excited to come to my job and work with my friends. It really takes a unique work environment to be able to say that your coworkers are not just team members but lifelong friends and that is one of my favorite things about working at Steve Spangler Science.
Q: What do you do at Steve Spangler Science? A: I help oversee the production of the fun kits and educational products that we provide to our great customers. I also
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We’re back from the Warner Bros. studios in Burbank, California with lots of fun stories from our latest appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. When I say ‘we’… I mean ‘we’ because there’s no way I could pull these segments off by myself. Jeff Brooks, Carly Reed and Lisa Brooks traveled with me and worked hard backstage and on the outside location shoot to make everything run smoothly. Unlike other talk shows, the people at the Ellen Show are used to pulling off big stunts… but even this one had everyone a little on edge because no one really knew what was going to happen to all of those ping pong balls. Watch the video…
The line-up of science demos was as follows…
Cloud in a Bottle – a really visual way of creating a water vapor cloud instantly in a 2-liter bottle.
The second demo was a Dust Explosion using a very fine spore called Lycopodium, a fine yellow powder derived from the spores of Lycopodium clavatum (stag’s horn club moss, running ground pine). By itself, the powder is not flammable. When the fine powder is dispersed in the air and each particle is surrounded by oxygen, it’s very flammable…and the
