A tornado is a violently spinning column of air that extends from the bottom of a storm cloud to the ground. Tornadoes are formed within thunderstorms when warm, moist air rises and meets cool, drier air. The warm, moist air is lighter than the cooler air, creating a strong updraft that may come in contact with varying wind directions as it rises. With the right conditions, a spinning top effect is created within the storm resulting in a tornado. The vortex of the storm is the motion that causes liquids and gases to move in a spiral motion around a center point. A simple science project creates such a vortex in a bottle to show the effects within a tornado.
Kids can create a tornado in a bottle with a few household supplies. Use two empty 2-liter soda bottles with the labels removed. Fill one of the bottles half-full of water. Add a few drops of food coloring and a sprinkling of glitter. Invert the second, empty soda bottle on top of the bottle with the liquid. Line up the openings and wrap duct tape around the tops, sealing them completely. Now you are ready to create your tornado.
While holding the bottles by the taped tops, invert them so that the water-filled bottle is on top. Set the empty bottle on the table. Gently rotate the bottles to swirl the water, creating a vortex as the water moves from one bottle to the other. You can repeat the process as often as you like, always remembering to swirl the water to produce the vortex.
When you spin the bottle to create the water vortex, you have made your own tornado. Observe the rotation of the “rain” surrounding the vortex you have created. The glitter you added represents the debris that becomes caught up within the vortex, just as debris is caught up within a real tornado.