How to Make a tornado experiment with bottles
- Two large bottles with at least one fitting cap, about 2 litters (we used plant milk bottles).
- Clear Duct tape
- Green glitter we used about 2 teaspoons
- Sharp knife or scissors
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To make:
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Make sure the bottles are completely washed out.
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Use a knife or scissors to cut a hole in the center of one of the caps. We did they by basically twisting the knife to drill into the cap. You want the opening to be about a ½ inch.
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Twist on this lid.
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Fill the second, capless, bottle about 3/4s full and then add the soap and glitter.
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Place the capped bottle upside down on the water filled bottle and then firmly hold together, perfectly aligned, while wrapping the duct tape around the opening/necks of the two bottles to connect them. You want to make sure you have a super tight connection so there wont be any leaks. We made this days ago, experimented with it many times each day and have had zero leaks using this exact method.
Optional: 1 teaspoon dish soap… we chose to use this because we like how it slows down the vortex and takes this from a tornado at first to almost a calming bottle to watch.
We love the way it slowly swirls the glitter within the bubbles! Leaving the soap out will speed up the process and give you a larger tornado to watch-that you can then swirl and watch quickly over and over without waiting. Your call!
To use:
Once your bottles are connected and tape is completely secure, hold the neck of the bottles where they connect, quickly flip the bottles so the bottle with the water is on top and swirl the top of the bottle for about 10 seconds and then quickly and gently set down on a flat surface. Within about 5 seconds the water should find its way into a vortex tornado and make its way down into the lower, previously empty bottle.