Homemade vs. Store Bought Lava Lamps What’s the Difference? By Grant Larson, Josseline Acosta, Molly Baldwin, and Khalil Bingamon Lesson Overview and Reflection Product: Lava Lamps Essential Question: What's better, store bought or homemade? Story Narrative: Lava Lamps are inspiring. Assessment Used: Reflection: Store Bought: Store bought lava lamp ingredients are trade secrets of the chain manufacturing them, but the original lava lamps lava was made with Paraffin. Paraffin is a type of wax that is a hydrocarbon, meaning that it is made up of Hydrogen and Carbon. Paraffin is less dense than water when it is in both solid and liquid forms. In other words, paraffin will float in water no matter how hot ND MELTED OR COLD AND SOLID IT is. So the paraffin is mixed with chlorine to increase the density. To make it just a little denser than water. Paraffin has a very low melting point, so when it is slightly heated up it will get bigger or expand causing it to float. When you use a lava lamp there is a light bulb that turns on and heats up the paraffin. When the paraffin is away from the light bulb it cools down and shrinks up making it more dense. It then floats down. After that is done it starts over again. Home Made: First you fill most of the bottle with vegetable oil then you add some food coloring to get the color, make sure to leave room at the top of the bottle. Drop a alkaseltzer, then it will release CO2 gas making the vegetable “lava” move around. REFERENCES “How to make a lava lamp” instructables.com publisher: instructables.com 4/12/13 “Historical Timeline” lavalamps.com publisher: lavalamps.com 4/12/13 “The World’s Easiest Lava Lamp” publisher: sciencebob.com 4/15/13 “So where is that lava lamp now?” publisher: New York Times 4/15/13 “Lava Lamps” publisher: Chemical engineering news 4/15/13 Grant Larson is a sophomore student at HTHI and plays varsity baseball. Molly Baldwin is a sophomore student at HTHI and is on the varsity swim team. Josseline Acosta is a sophomore student at HTHI and likes to hangout with friends. Khalil Bingmon is a sophomore student at HTHI and likes to play basketball. Activity: Activity: Making Homemade Lava Lamps This activity is intended for anyone in middle school through high school. (3) (4 fl. oz.) (3 drops) (2) Our 3 Big Ideas Show homemade and store bought lava lamps Have people make homemade lava lamps Have people use a homemade lava lamps How this Activity Demonstrates them When the store bought and homemade lava lamps are shown, people can see the difference between them and see which ones they like to have in their homes, if any. It will show people how easy it is to make a homemade lave lamp and see what it takes to make a store bought lava lamp. It will show people how difficult it is to even try to make a store bought lava lamp and how precise it has to be to work. Also how expensive it will end up being and how cheap a homemade one will be Materials 16.9 fl. oz. Water Bottle 12 fl. Oz. Vegetable Oil Alka-Seltzer tablets Water Store bought lava lamp What to do Pour 12 fl. Oz. of vegetable oil into the water bottle Then pour some food coloring Drop an alka-seltzer Be amazed