volcano eruption experiment making

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How to Make a Volcano Experiment

Creating a volcano experiment is a classic science lab project that offers a spectacular display of chemical reactions. This interactive project offers not just a stunning visual display but also serves as an enriching learning experience, showcasing the concepts of chemical reactions, pressure dynamics, and the study of Earth sciences. Below is a guide to crafting your very own erupting volcano, perfect for students, teachers, and anyone with a curiosity about how these magnificent natural phenomena can be modeled at a small scale.

Materials Needed for Volcano experiment:

A small bottle or container (this will be the volcano’s “chamber”)
Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
Vinegar (acetic acid)
Liquid dishwashing soap
Food coloring (red or orange for a lava-like effect)
Modeling clay or playdough (to mold the volcano)
Tray or a large plate (to catch the overflow)
Safety goggles (always wear goggles when performing any experiment)

IMPORTANT: Ensure your child wears goggles and is always under adult supervision for their safety while performing the volcano experiment.

Instructions For the Experiment

Construct the volcano:.

Use the modeling clay or playdough to make a cone shape of a volcano around the bottle. Don’t put clay on the bottle’s opening as this will be the crater from which your volcano will erupt. Place your volcano bottle on the tray or large plate to catch any overflow and avoid the table getting dirty.

Prepare the Eruption Mixture:

Fill the bottle almost halfway with warm water and add a few drops of food coloring.

Add in a good amount of liquid dishwashing soap into the bottle and stir the mixture gently. The soap helps to produce more foamy lava during the eruption.

Add Baking Soda:

Add two tablespoons of baking soda to the mixture in the bottle. This will act as the base of the chemical reaction.

Let it Erupt:

Now for the exciting part! Slowly pour vinegar into the bottle and watch as your volcano erupts with bubbly, colored lava.

Volcano Experiment Explained:

This experiment simulates a volcanic eruption through a chemical reaction between baking soda (a base) and vinegar (an acid). When these substances mix, they react to form carbonic acid, which immediately decomposes into water and carbon dioxide gas. The carbon dioxide gas builds up pressure inside the bottle until it pushes the mixture out, mimicking a volcanic eruption. The dish soap added to the mixture helps create more foam, making the eruption even more spectacular.

Variations of the Volcano Experiment:

Experiment with proportions:.

Change the amounts of baking soda, vinegar, and dish soap to see how it affects the eruption’s size and duration.

Color Variations:

Use different food coloring to simulate different colors of volcanic eruptions or lava flows.

Surface Textures:

Modify the surface of your volcano with paint, real rocks, and sand to make it more realistic.

Eruption Strength:

To increase the strength of your eruption, you can experiment with adding a spoonful of dry yeast to the vinegar before adding it to the baking soda solution. The yeast accelerates the production of carbon dioxide gas, resulting in a more vigorous eruption.

This volcano experiment is a fascinating way to bring the dynamic processes of the Earth to life. It allows participants to engage directly with the materials and witness the exciting reactions that occur. Whether you’re conducting this experiment at home, at school, or as part of a science fair project, it’s sure to provide an educational and entertaining experience for everyone involved.

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Volcano Experiment – Baking Soda Volcano

March 20, 2018 By Emma Vanstone 1 Comment

When you think of great science experiments for kids one of the first that springs to mind is probably a baking soda volcano and vinegar volcano. I remember making one with my little brother in the kitchen when he was about 4 or 5. Baking soda volcanoes and coke floats were our favourite summer activities.

You might also like our 10 science experiments every child should try at least once with a free printable checklist to work through.

A baking soda volcano eruption is a fantastic first demonstration of a chemical reaction as the ingredients are safe ( although do wear safety glasses to protect your eyes from vinegar )

Why does a baking soda and vinegar reaction happen?

If you combine an acid and an alkali they react together to neutralise each other. Vinegar is an acid and bicarbonate of soda is an alkali.

The reaction releases carbon dioxide gas, which is the bubbles you see. If you add washing up liquid ( dish soap ) to your eruption mix the bubbles make the washing up liquid bubble up, giving the appearance of lava erupting from a volcano .

How to make a baking soda volcano

What you need to make a baking soda volcano.

Basically you need the ingredients for the volcano eruption , a jar or small bottle for the eruption to happen in and something to use as the volcano part.

Volcano – sand, snow, modroc etc

Small jar or bottle

Red food colouring

Baking soda

Volcano Instructions

I don’t usually measure an exact amount of each, but a good dollop of baking soda, a squirt of dish soap and a bit of red food colouring mixed with a little water should give you a good eruption. If it doesn’t, add a bit more baking soda.

If you want to make a very quick and easy baking soda volcano a sand volcano is a good option, or a snow volcano !

sand baking soda volcano - science for kids

Volcano Experiment Extension Ideas

What happens if you don’t use the dish soap? Can you predict what might happen before trying it?

What happens if you add extra dish soap?

Volcano Experiment Extra Challenge s

Can you think of an acidic fruit you could use to make an baking soda volcano eruption without adding vinegar?

Create a papier mache volcano ? We love this version from Red Ted Art.

Design a multicoloured volcano? We split our jar in half and poured yellow food colouring into one half and red into the other for this.

Multicoloured volcano - science for kids

What’s your favourite baking soda volcano to make?

What is a volcano?

A volcano is a mountain that contains a magma ( rock so hot it has turned into a liquid ) chamber. The magma chamber is filled with liquid rock. If enough pressure builds inside the chamber the volcano can explode shooting the magma from the top! When magma is on the surface of the Earth we call it lava! This is a volcanic eruption and can cause a lot

Make a model of a famous volcano

Another idea is to make a model of a famous volcano. In my book This Is Rocket Science one of the activities is to make a baking soda Olympus Mons . It’s a great way to learn about chemical reactions, volcanoes and Mars!!

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Last Updated on March 2, 2021 by Emma Vanstone

Safety Notice

Science Sparks ( Wild Sparks Enterprises Ltd ) are not liable for the actions of activity of any person who uses the information in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources. Science Sparks assume no liability with regard to injuries or damage to property that may occur as a result of using the information and carrying out the practical activities contained in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources.

These activities are designed to be carried out by children working with a parent, guardian or other appropriate adult. The adult involved is fully responsible for ensuring that the activities are carried out safely.

Reader Interactions

March 21, 2018 at 2:44 pm

My kids just love making erupting volcanoes – they are really fascinated by them. Love your challenges and extension ideas – will defo give them a try!

How to Make an Awesome Volcano Science Project

This post may contain affiliate links.

Want to know how to make a volcano with your kids? Making a volcano that erupts is one of those good old classic science projects that kids just love doing! I am surprised that I don’t have this one on my site yet, because it’s a favorite! Also, grab your free printable Volcano Diagram Worksheets, too!

My husband found an old book this past week for my son called 101 Cool Science Experiments by Glen Singleton. We flipped through the book together marking all of the pages of the experiments that we want to try. He is a little bit of a science fanatic like me. We both get excited about new experiments! He was most excited to try making a volcano!

It’s funny, so many of my experiments were done with my two older kids and now we are really enjoying recreating them with the younger half of the family. This was a favorite of my oldest son snd now the younger kids had a blast with it! Get ready for mess.

Also check out out our Erupting Dinosaur Extinction Slime !

How to Make a Volcano

Watch it all here, or read on for the written instructions.

We made our volcano model with salt dough. Salt dough is super simple to make and can be air dried if you want to make it ahead and save it for a science fair project.

Salt Dough Recipe

6 cups of Flour

2 cups of Salt

2 cups of Water

2 Tbsp of Cooking Oil

Coloring (you can use food coloring or liquid water color)

Mix the best you can with a spoon, but you may need to just dig in with your hands. That’s what I had to do. This is a hard dough so you can mold it and make it stand up around the bottle for your volcano filling. You may need to add a little bit more water depending on your climate. I added 1/4-1/3 cup more after I got into it.

You may notice the gray swirls in our dough. We tried to color our dough with some black liquid watercolors , but it would have taken the whole bottle, so we gave up!

Building the Volcano

You will need a bottle in the center. You can use a soda bottle a water bottle or a glass bottle like we used. Whatever you have on hand that has a smaller opening on top should work just fine!

Place the bottle in the center of a large cookie sheet. Mold the salt dough into a volcano shape around the bottle making sure to leave an opening at the top to add your volcano’s “lava” filling.

This is tons of fun to shape it to look like an amazing volcano. My kids were creating paths for the lava to flow through.

How to Make a Volcano Erupt (With Baking Soda & Vinegar)

Now to make the eruption solution! Making the volcano erupt is fun, messy and is over pretty quick, so don’t blink! 😉

Ingredients to Make your Volcano Erupt:

Red Food Coloring- Or red liquid watercolors

A few drops of Dish Soap- about a Tablespoon

2 Tbsp Baking Soda

Mix the red coloring, water, and some dish soap together. We used about 2 cups of water, but you’ll just need to fill your bottle about 3/4 of the way full.

Put 2 Tbsp of baking soda into the bottle.

Pour in your vinegar and watch the eruption go! Now is the perfect time to teach about the chemical reaction between the baking soda and vinegar.

Can we do it again?! (That’s what your kids will say.)

I am loving that I captured their excited expressions!

Have you done this fun, classic experiment with your kids?

How to Make a Volcano- science experiment

Volcano Variations:

Make a volcano erupt with smoke by adding dry ice! Check out my smoking dragon post for tips.

Make a thicker lava by trying elephant toothpaste in the bottle!

Volcano Diagram Worksheets

Extend the learning with these Printable Volcano Diagram worksheets! This printable set includes color and black and white diagrams with both labeled and unlabeled versions. You can use them for learning and for quizzing later! Download your Volcano Diagrams now!

Learn about Real Volcanos and how they really erupt by reading some books on Volcanoes!

Volcanoes! Mountains for Fire by Eric Arnold is a great place to start.

We also like the Magic School Bus Blows its Top by Gail Herman

You may also enjoy: 30 More Baking Soda and Vinegar Experiments! It has some more fun ways to experiment with this chemical reaction.

Check out my Science Book! Science Art and Drawing Games for Kids

Former school teacher turned homeschool mom of 4 kids. Loves creating awesome hands-on creative learning ideas to make learning engaging and memorable for all kids!

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One comment.

I couldn’t find the instructions but some how i found out how to do it with now instructions