You might not know it, but the Pacific Northwest is volcano country, and you're likely to see a couple if you hang around the Seattle area long enough. From a good high spot on a clear day, you should be able to see the dramatic Mount Rainier, one of the local volcanoes. This small experiment will give young visitors a glimpse of nature's power by letting them make a "home-made" volcano, not unlike majestic Mount Rainier.

Instructions:

An entire chain of volcanoes, some still active, stretches from Northern California in the south to British Columbia in the north. These are the Cascade Mountains and they're actually a small segment of an entire chain (the "Ring of Fire") of active and dormant volcanoes which line most of the Pacific Ocean. Volcanoes make this ring pattern because the Pacific Plate collides with other tectonic plates along the edges of the Pacific ocean, making all those edges very geologically active places, with earthquakes in Japan and California, and volcanos in Indonesia and the Pacific Northwest.

To get an idea of how a volcano works, perform the following simple experiment at home:

Simply pour a fair amount of baking soda into a plastic container (an empty yogurt or cottage cheese container works well), and then slowly pour a steady stream of vinegar on top of the baking soda. The mixture produces carbon dioxide, which delivers a cloud of smoke and "lava" resembling those of a real volcano.

If you're at the beach during your stay in Seattle, build a volcano cone of dry sand around the container, and pour the baking soda and then the vinegar into the cone for a more realistic effect.

You can also add food coloring to the baking soda and vinegar mixture for colorful lava and adjust the ratios of all the ingredients to create more powerful explosions.

Conclusion:

They may look like mountains now, but Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens (a bit further south) have both erupted in the last 150 years: in fact, one of Mount St. Helens' more recent eruptions in 1980 was extremely violent, causing a great deal of turmoil and loss of life in the areas around the mountain and much further away. There's nothing like a volcanic eruption to demonstrate the power of nature in one of her "mean streaks". More sophisticated audiences can check the Web for instructions on how to make a plaster of Paris volcano cone. Generally speaking, two cups of the plaster mix, sold in craft stores, can be mixed with one cup of water and then shaped into a cone before it dries. It works best if you shape a sheet of light cardboard or construction paper into a cone, and then smooth the plaster of Paris mixture on top of that.

Supplies & Materials

-plastic container
-baking soda
-vinegar
-paper towels

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