Science Project: Water Tornado Maker

A few weeks ago, we had fun learning through educational STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) focused activities at home. One of the science activities was to learn about tornadoes and we have been provided with this Tornado Maker kit which is suitable for ages 5 and above.

A tornado is a vortex of air. It starts when strong currents of air are created inside giant thunderstorms. It is not easy to recreate an air tornado but, by using this kit, it shows the effects of gravitational pull on water inside a bottle. The water vortexes can be also seen whenever you let water out of the bath and it spins down the plug hole.

Inside this kit, it comes with two red caps for the bottle and a connector. You will need two 1.5 litre empty bottles to do this project. It won’t work if you are using small size bottles.

Firstly, half fill one of the plastic bottles with water. Screw the red caps on both the bottles and place the connector on the top of the half-filled bottle. Place the empty bottle into the connector and tip the bottles around.

Now the half-filled bottle will be on the top. Slightly tap the empty bottle or move the top bottle in small circles a few times to make the water swirl around. Leave it to stand on a flat surface.

Next you will see the swirling water inside the top bottle as it pours into the empty bottle causes the formation of a vortex, which looks like a water tornado. Gravity pulls the water through the hole. The vortex has a hole in the centre. As the water flows down, air from the bottom bottle flows up to replace it.

Watch this video on how the water tornado looks: https://youtu.be/Fa_Y_bS3lVQ

Did you know that strong currents in rivers and at sea sometimes create whirlpools, where water swirls downwards in a vortex? Also did you know that winds of a tornado move in a counter-clockwise direction in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere?

This kit is provided by Great Gizmos for our Twitter party. If you want to get this kit, you can get it online stores such as from Amazon.

Disclosure: We have received this kit as part of our Twitter party. We have included an Amazon affiliate link to the product. If you click on this and buy, we may earn a small commission.