We’ve moved on to air pressure!
All those layers of atmosphere, pushing down on us, well that’s atmospheric pressure! Pretty cool, huh?! The kids asked why we can’t feel that on our heads. *snicker, snicker*
This was a great time to explain a little further why our ears pop as we drive further up the mountains here in Colorado. The higher you go, the less pressure there is. The air pressure pushing in on your eardrums from the outside drops until it’s less than the pressure pushing out from the inside. The imbalance gives us that funny feeling.
Air pressure is continually changing. We have low pressure ~ lighter warm air; & high pressure ~ heavier cold air. We used the experiment below to show that warm air takes up more space than cold.
We put a balloon over a soda bottle and put it into a pot of water. Here is the balloon before going into the water.

But as the water is heated, the molecules begin to move faster and faster – just like what happens when air is warmed.

That makes the balloon stretch and blow up. In the atmosphere, warm air takes up more space than the same amount of cold air—and weighs less.
We also made a barometer, the instrument used to measure air pressure. We've been tracking it over several days now. Very cool!


|
Blessings and ((HUGS)) my SSiC
In Him<><
-Mary