Tornado in a Jar

• Fill your jar about 3/4 full with water and add in 3-5 drops of blue food dye (depending on the size of your jar and how dark you want the water to be).
• Add a teaspoon of dish soap and a teaspoon of vinegar to your blue water.
• Tighten your lid
• Hold the jar by the lid and rotate it around in a circle in a smooth, steady motion with your wrist and watch the vortex form.

Anemometer

• Make a hole in the side of each of the 4 paper cups.
• Make 4 holes spaced evenly around the rim of the last cup. This will be the center of the anemometer.
• Slide 2 of the wooden dowels through the holes in the center cup. They should cross in an “X.”
• Insert the ends of the dowels into the holes of the other cups and tape them into place. Make sure the cups are all facing the same direction.
• Take the last wooden dowel and make a hole in the bottom of the center cup.
• Push the dowel up until it meets the X and tape everything together. This will be your rotation axis.
• Put the center dowel into an empty water bottle and begin testing!

Testing Your Anemometer

• Start by calibrating your anemometer. Check the wind speed outside (a weather website should be able to help with this) and bring your anemometer outside. Count how many times your anemometer rotates in 30 seconds. You now know how many times your anemometer will rotate in 30 seconds at the current wind speed.
• Alternatively, you can ask an adult to drive you in a car going 10km an hour. Put the anemometer out the window and count how many times it rotates in 30 seconds.
• Now you know how much it will rotate at a given wind speed. You can use that number to figure out how fast the wind is going, based on how quickly your anemometer is spinning.