Rising Tides: Exploring the Fascinating World of Water with a DIY Rising Water Experiment!

Looking for a quick and easy science experiment to do with the kiddos? This is a great one. It was very fascinating to watch, and the kids loved it. They thought it was awesome.

It’s super easy to set up and the materials you need are very cheap, and you may already have them around your house. Let’s get into it.

What is this experiment?

This is experiment is watching water rise up the inside of a jar, by using a lit candle and a few other materials. It was pretty neat to watch because I never really thought it would work. As an adult I had never seen this experiment done and couldn’t even figure out why the water was rising.

Good news for you, I have the original post on where I found this experiment. It will have the whole explanation on how the water rises and more. Very helpful when trying to explain it to the kids. I will link it at the end of the post.

Materials you will need.

The materials you will need are simple. A small plate, a glass jar, a candle, play dough (this helps keep the candle in place), a lighter or match, and food coloring. The food coloring is to help make it more fun and easier to watch the water rise up the jar.

I suggest having more than one candle, because my kids wanted to try the whole pack of candles I bought. If your kids also love play dough like mine and you don’t want them to get to it, take a small piece out before you tell them it’s time to do the experiment.

My kiddos left play dough out the day before we did this experiment. It was hard and out of the container. So, I was finding big chunks across the house. I guess I can blame this on myself because I just let them have at it without making sure they put it back.

Rating.

This was a great experiment to wow the kids and even myself. It was little difficult to explain to the younger kids why the water was rising and why the flame of the candle went out.

Explaining oxygen to a 2-year-old is definitely no need. At least for mine. They just thought it was cool to watch the water rise and wanted to do more candles. With my older kids I could explain what oxygen was and how the candle flame needed oxygen to keep burning.

Unfortunately, they thought the experiment was too short and they wanted to do more. That’s the only experiment I had prepared so they were a little disappointed. Of course, I didn’t have them draw out an observation or even guess what would happen.

I am more of a hands-on mama so sometimes forget the worksheet part of projects and experiments. At the end of the day, they loved the experience and are still excited to learn more and more about science. Which is all I ask for.

1 through 10 I’ll give this an 8. Again, it blew our minds but was a little too short for our liking. It left them wanting to do more. And mama needs a little bit of a break after school time.

Conclusion

There you have it. If you want to give this a try yourself, check out the directions and worksheets available here: https://www.mombrite.com/burning-candle-in-water-experiment/.

Thanks for reading and we hope this blows your mind just like it did ours. Leave comments below if you tried it and loved it. Or tried it and wanted more!