2. For this next one, we took a soda can, added a spoon of water and set it on a burner.

Once we saw steam, we took a pair tongs and placed the can upside down in a dish of cold water. The hot air inside the can cools, creating a difference in air pressure. When the air pressure outside becomes greater than the pressure inside the can, the can is crushed. We didn't see the can crush, however, we did experience something else. The water inside the dish was sucked up into the can....again the difference in air pressure caused this. It was rather comical -- we kept trying to get the can to crush, finally the kids realized it was working, just in a different way.

3. This next one was neat. The idea behind this explains how a pot of water boils on our stoves.

Air always moves from high pressure to low pressure. So you have a pocket of cool air that warms up, as it warms, it becomes lighter and rises. That in turn leaves an empty space below it...( a low pressure zone )...cold, heavier air then is able to rush in to fill in that empty hole. Then the cycle begins again. Cold air turns warm, rises, cold air moves in under it, and on and on. This is called a 'convection cell,' the circular pattern that it makes. And this is how our pasta water boils. The water on the bottom grows hot, rises, then the cold water moves in under it and it continues until the entire pot is boiling. So whether air or water, its the same deal.  Isn't that neat?!  Of course we have an awesomely smart God who invented gravity, without it, this convection cell idea wouldn't work!

So here we took a dish with cold water and set half of it on a burner. We then added a couple drops of food coloring to the cold side and watched a 'convection cell' in action!

This is 'Atmosphere in a Pan.' We were able to see the colored water sink, move toward the warm end of the dish, rise upward, and then move back to the cool end of the pan. Rather fascinating!

 Kaden's drawing of the convection cell experiment.