Photo Credit: Rita Hernandez

This is a simple and easy science project to do with your homeschooled children. It requires very little equipment or work.

What you will need:

• Jar with lid
• Water
• Vinegar
• Clear liquid dish soap (yellow will also work but not any other color)

How to Make Your Tornado:

1. Fill the jar 3/4 full of water.
2. Put in one teaspoon of vinegar and one teaspoon of dish soap.
3. Close the lid and twist the jar to swirl the water and see a vortex like a tornado form in the center of the jar.

You can make debris by adding glitter if you like. As you can see from my picture it is simple,the hard part was getting the picture as the tornado only lasts for a few seconds.

Here’s what your children should learn from this project:

The swirling winds of a tornado are called a vortex. As you twist the jar, the water inside up against the glass is pulled along due to its friction again the glass walls. The fluid toward the inside takes longer to get moving thus creating a vortex. Eventually both the glass jar and the fluid are spinning as you rotate the bottle so that when you stop rotating the jar, the fluid inside keeps spinning. Both air and water are fluids which means that they move in similar ways.