🧪 Science with Sarah: Soda bottle tornadoes 🌪️

A whirling good time

👉 Watch the video of Sarah’s science experiment at Anne Frank Inspire Academy NW Military here!

Hello parents, teachers and students!

Be sure to check out GMSA@9 on Wednesdays when Meteorologist Sarah Spivey does the demonstrations and explains the science behind it.

Science with Sarah in partnership with the San Antonio Zoo (Copyright KSAT 2023 - All rights reserved)

HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL NEED

Materials needed for your soda bottle tornado (Copyright KSAT 2024 - All rights reserved)
  • Two 2-liter soda bottles with the labels removed
  • Plastic tornado bottle connector. Find them here
  • Water
  • Food dye (optional)
  • Glitter (optional)

DO THE EXPERIMENT

  • STEP 1: Make sure to remove all parts of the plastic lid from the soda bottles
  • STEP 2: Fill one of the soda bottles 2/3 with water. Add only a couple of drops of food dye and glitter to the water.
  • STEP 3: Screw tight the tornado connector onto to the filled bottle
  • STEP 4: Take the empty soda bottle and connect it to the top of the other soda bottle. Make sure it is screwed on tight or else your tornado will leak!
  • STEP 5: Flip the soda bottles so that the empty bottle is on the table and the filled bottle is on the top. Give everything a quick swirl and you should see a tornado develop!
The finished tornado (Copyright KSAT 2024 - All rights reserved)

SCIENCE WITH SARAH

If you’d like Sarah and David to come to your school and conduct a science experiment live on KSAT, fill out this form. “Winners” are selected at random.


About the Authors

Sarah Spivey is a San Antonio native who grew up watching KSAT. She has been a proud member of the KSAT Weather Authority Team since 2017. Sarah is a Clark High School and Texas A&M University graduate. She previously worked at KTEN News. When Sarah is not busy forecasting, she enjoys hanging out with her husband and cat, and playing music.

Ben Spicer is a digital journalist who works the early morning shift for KSAT.

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