Use Shaving Cream, Water, And Food Colouring To Teach How Rain Clouds Form

Introduction

Rain is a natural phenomenon of our nature and is loved by most of the people. The smell of the rain brings joy inside us. But sometimes, it also shows us the power of the almighty by heavily showering on us. If your kids love the rain and also love playing in the rain, it would be quite interesting to show them how rain occurs and showers down to the mother earth through the rain clouds. The things that will be required to demonstrate this experiment are listed below. Rain is very much essential for all the living beings keeping alive.

 

 

How Rain Occurs?

Rain is a natural phenomenon and an essential part of the “water-cycle".

1. The Sun heats the water bodies present on the Earth. The heated water is then evaporated into water vapours and goes up in the sky. This process is known as evaporation, which is the first process that takes place in the water cycle.
2. As the water vapour goes up, it cools down and forms tiny water droplets. This process is known as condensation. It is the opposite of evaporation. In this process, clouds are formed around the water droplets and it keeps growing with time.
3. Inside the clouds, the tiny water droplets get close to each other and tend towards forming larger droplets. As the water droplets keep growing, it also gets heavier and denser. This is known as precipitation. One million tiny water droplets combine to form one big water droplet or a raindrop.
4. Once it reaches the density where the density of the water droplet is larger than the density of the cloud, it falls down through the surface of the cloud to the ground and we experience the rain.
5. All these processes keep on continuing in nature.
   

Apparatus

1. Shaving Foam
2. Water
3. Transparent glass
4. Food colour
   

Procedure

Take a glass and fill it half with clean water.

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Fill the other half with shaving foam on the top of the water.

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Pour few drops of the food colour on the top of the foam.

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Observe the activity.

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Conclusion

1. The water in the glass is our surroundings.
2. The foam on the top of it is the rain clouds that contain
3. Food colour is used to indicate the raindrops that we can see whenever there is a shower.
4. As soon as we put the food colour on the foam, within one to two seconds, it breaks the surfaces of the foam and dribbles into the water.
5. The reason why the liquid colour passes through the foam is that the colour is much denser than the foam. As a result, it breaks the surface of the foam and passes through it.
6. The colour drops in the water are what we experience the water droplets in the form of rain.