Inside a Volcano_ A Cool Model

Hi, I am Jared. Welcome to Fun Science Demos. I took a little field trip to the food store to get just the right materials to show you how a volcano works on the inside. In a previous video, we used ice cream and chocolate syrup to show you how a volcano works on the outside. Now it is time to take a closer look at what is going on inside a volcano from the inside. Now there are two parts to a volcano. The volcano itself, which I thought these jello packs would be perfect for the volcano, and then the lava that breaks through the earth's crust, which is hot liquid rock. So I got all of these things, which I thought might do a good job at representing that hot liquid rock. Now remember, we want to test these to find out which is just the right thickness to represent our hot liquid rock. It cannot be too thick that it does not flow, and it cannot be too runny that it just runs all over the place. So I think it is time to open them up, squeeze a little bit out, and see what their thickness is like. So we have zoomed in so you can get a better look at the thickness of each of these. Let us try our caramel sauce. You can see it is a little thick. Now let us try some strawberry and chocolate syrup. Chocolate first. I do not know, that might work. Strawberry next. Whoa, really runny. I do not think that is going to work at all. Let us try some spray cheese. It is looking a little too thick to me. This is a flavored orange topping for ice cream. That might work. We have some caro syrup. Wow, that flows really nicely, but it is clear. And then finally some maple syrup, which I think might be a little too runny. So if we look at all of these, I like how this caro syrup is really holding its shape. I think it is going to be perfect for thickness. It is just clear. So now we need to figure out how can we make it so that we can actually see it. And I think what we need to do is add some food coloring. So we have decided on the caro syrup for our hot liquid rock. Now it is time to figure out which jello cup would work best for our volcano. These ones right here I think are a little too short for our volcano. I think it would work, but the taller it is the better. So I have green and red. I am thinking when I hold them up that the green is a whole lot easier to see through. So let us try going with the green. Now in a different aisle in the food store I found this. Now I know it looks like a big needle, but it is not. It is called a flavor injector. And what I can do, it allows me to suck up all the flavored juices when I am making a chicken and then stick it inside the chicken and inject all those juices deep inside the chicken. And that is going to work perfect because now I should be able to to put all of our hot liquid rock inside my flavor injector and use it to inject that liquid rock into our volcano and see what happens. So let us take a little tour and get an idea of how this works. This comes with a sharp point and what I had to do is snip that sharp point off so that I have one clean hole at the end. And then the top of this unscrews and it allows me to pull the whole plunger right out. And now I am ready to dump my Karo syrup in. I like to put my finger over the hole. You do not really have to. Some will drip out. Now it is time to pour. I will fill it not all the way up, about two-thirds of the way. It is clear. So now I have to add some black food coloring. Here we go. I want it to be nice and dark, so I am going to put a decent amount in. Now it is time to mix it up. I am going to use a nice skewer, which I am going to need later for my volcano. Stir it around and I have some nice dark liquid rock. So I have my hot liquid rock inside my injector ready to go. I have to keep it pointed up or it is going to leak out, so I am going to set it in this glass. And now I need to get my volcano ready. This jello pack has a plastic coating around it that I have to cut off with the scissors. And I can leave the foil covering on the bottom to keep things neat. I put down a tray to catch any juice. I am going to take my scissors and snip the corner about that high. I start it and what I like to do is lean the jello down, so I am not cutting into the jello. It comes away from the container as I turn it. I want to make sure it does not fall out. Trim it off and I am almost ready to go. And now I have my jello volcano. So now it is time to take a closer look at what is going on inside our volcano. Our jello is clear, so we can really see what is going on. And now what I need to do is I need to put a hole through the center of my volcano. Scientists call that the main vent and that is what the liquid rock travels through to get outside of the volcano. So I am going to take my wooden skewer, center it as best I can. And now you can see me push through the jello creating my main vent and I am coming out the bottom. What I am going to do is really make sure that vent is nice and open by spinning my stick. And when I pull it out it looks like it is almost gone. Well that jello kind of went back together but it is a weak spot and that is really important. That hot liquid rock breaks through the crust where it is weak. So that main vent we just made weak. Now sometimes scientists have discovered that that hot liquid rock finds another weakness in the volcano and breaks through the side. They call that a side vent. So I am going to take my wooden skewer and make a side vent. I do not want to go too far. I want to meet up with the main vent. Spin it. Now my volcano has its areas of weakness. It is time to introduce the hot liquid rock and see which way it travels. So we are ready to make our mini volcano. I have my hot liquid rock in my injector. I have my volcano with the main vent and side vent. What I am going to do is insert this into the bottom. We are going to zoom in so you can see me insert this into the bottom and then we can watch how the liquid rock travels up our volcano. We can see what is going on in the inside. So I am going to push this through the bottom. Now I will push this up too far so you can see the tip. There is the tip. I do not know if you can see it. I am going to bring it back down a little bit and now I am going to be ready to go. So here we go. I am going to add some pressure with my hand to squirt the hot liquid rock up through my volcano and let us see if we can watch how it travels. So you can see it start coming in. It broke through the main vent. Do you see the side vent coming out? It is going to try to break through. It broke through the side vent. Now you can see I have a core of that hot liquid rock, a main chamber, in my jello. That is center magma and as it breaks through it is called lava. You can see it oozing down out of my volcano and we can clearly see the two main vents just like the inside of a volcano. It was pretty cool to see how that hot liquid rock travels through the inside of a volcano. And all we had to do was visit our local food store. If you want to learn more about volcanoes, check out our other videos in our video description. Science is so cool, especially when it is messy. Sometimes you just have to stop and try and wonder why. I wonder how this one would work for my volcano.