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Yellowstone Learning~ Old Faithful Geyser Experiment

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This month we took our kids on a family vacation to Yellowstone National Park. My husband and I had never been there, so we were just as excited as the kids were to see the amazing sights. I want to share a couple of fun ways to learn about Yellowstone with your kids as well as a really cool Old Faithful Geyser experiment that we did together. This also goes along with my Geography Projects from A to Z series for the letter G.  We are doing projects using the book Geography from A to Z by Jack Knowlton.

Yellowstone learning ideas

Before we left I did a little research to see what things we could do to learn more about Yellowstone on our trip. The very best resource I found was the Jr. Ranger program. In the park visitor centers they have booklets for kids to complete and earn a patch for answering questions about the park. My kids worked so hard to earn their patches! They were very proud to receive them. The Yellowstone National Park site also has a whole bunch of free curriculum units to supplement learning. I printed out a few different ones that were appropriate for my kids and pulled them out on the drives around the park. CurrClick has a $5.00 lap book you can purchase about Yellowstone.

 

Yellowstone Jr Ranger Patches

What we loved about visiting Yellowstone were all of the amazing natural things to see that were so stunningly beautiful. It was incredible to me that all of these things happen naturally and are indescribable! At times I almost felt like I was not on our planet because the sights were so foreign! It is a wonderful place to visit with kids. We saw lots of wild animals along our drive and loved all of the paint pots, hot springs and geysers that just pop up along the way.

Yellowstone

 

This picture makes me laugh so hard because we couldn’t get our three-year-old to pose for one more picture!

When we got back we were still talking about all of the fun stuff we saw and learned in Yellowstone, so I thought it would be cool to do an Old Faithful Geyser experiment with the kids to help them better understand how the geysers worked. To do this geyser experiment you need a pot of water, a funner and some tin foil.

old faithful geyser experiment supplies

Fill the pot full of water and place the funnel in the pot upside down with the tube/spout part sticking up out of the water.

 Old Faithful Geyser Experiment

Cover the pot with the tin foil making a hole for the spout of the funnel. to be open and release steam. Turn the pot on high and let it boil. Once it starts boiling steam will escape and then the water will spout out of the tube just like a geyser! My kids really thought this was neat and a great demonstration of how the geyser worked!

 

Geyser experiment

In one of the gift shops I found a bookmark that I bought with Advice from a Geyser.  I just loved the words. I made an image of it for you below, because we can all use a little advice from a geyser, right?!

 

Advice from a Geyser 2

 

See more Geography Projects from A to Z:

geographyprojects

Geography Nesting Cans
A is for Atoll & Archipelago
B is for Beach & Bay
C is for Continent
D is for Delta
E is for Edible Earth’s Core
F is for Forest Diorama

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