Smoking Dragon Science with Dry Ice
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This Smoking Dragon Science activity is made with Dry Ice. This has been one of the TOP favorite activities we have done in a long time. You definitely want to try it with the kids. This STEAM project is literally STEAMING! 🙂
Have you read the book Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin? It is a favorite of ours. It is silly, and makes us laugh each time we read it! Today’s post is based on that book and is the theme of the Weekly Virtual Book Club for Kids this week. Learn more about the Weekly Virtual Book Club at the end of this post.
How to Do the Smoking Dragon Science Activity
Supplies Needed:
Dry Ice
Plastic of Styrofoam Cup
Plastic Sandwich Baggie
Rubber Band
Supplies for decorating: we used sharpie markers, pom-poms, and google eyes
Water
Hot Glue Gun
Decorate the Cup to Look Like a Dragon
To decorate our dragons, we colored in white styrofoam cups with sharpie markers. We hot glued on pom-poms for the eyes and the nose (The Elmer’s Glue pictured above did not stick to our cups). Then we also glued on some big google eyes on top of the pom-poms. This makes them stand up a bit more.
On the bottom of the cup, cut out a circle for the mouth.
Cover the tip of the cup with a plastic bag secured with a rubber band.
Pour a small amount of water into the hole in the cup. Then place a few small pieces of dry ice into the cup, too. You can easily break dry ice apart with the tip of a sharp knife. Use gloves when handling dry ice since it is extremely cold and can freeze your hands or cause frost bite.
Turn the Dragon on its side and tap the plastic bag on the back lightly. Smoke rings will puff out of the dragon’s mouth!!
How Does Dry Ice Work?
Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide. It freezes at a much lower temperature than water (-109 F or -79 C) making it MUCH colder! As it breaks down it turns into a gas instead of a liquid. That is why it is perfect for the smoking dragon science activity! This idea was inspired by Steve Spangler’s Dry Ice experiment.
This post is part of the Weekly Virtual Book Club for Kids series. Follow along by joining the Facebook Group!
See what other bloggers are sharing this week about dragons.
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