Breaking News: Volcanic Eruption at Hornby High School!

 Hi there!

Today I will be writing about a model volcano I made in Science over the past few days.  I tried to create a model version of a volcano in Hawai‘i, U.S.A. called Mauna Loa. This will be a mega blog post, featuring what should be 3 blog posts. This will be divided into three sections, here they are below: 

- Mauna Loa research

- Making the volcano

- Elephant toothpaste research

Mauna Loa research

Mauna Loa is located on the main island of Hawai‘i in U.S.A. It is the largest volcano in the world, it is classified as a 'shield' volcano because of its broad shape, similar to that of a shield. 

Mauna Loa is a special volcano, because it is the largest active volcano in the world. It has an elevation of 4,169m and is larger than all the other volcanoes on Hawai‘i combined. 'Mauna Loa' translates to 'long mountain'. The name fits the volcano brilliantly, since it extends 120km from the southern tip of the island to the eastern coastline. It is a certainty that it will erupt again. 

Mauna Loa last erupted in 1984, the eruption lasted from March 25-April 15. The volcano caused earthquakes up to a magnitude level of 6.6. The eruption started at 1:30am on 25.03.1984, luckily, a military satellite detected a strong infrared signal at the summit of the volcano. Minutes after this detection, residents reported seeing a large red glow at the top of Mauna Loa. Within a matter of days, the lava flow from Mauna Loa was 6km from Hilo city, the largest population on the Island of Hawai‘i. Luckily, it didn't reach the city, otherwise, it would have been catastrophic. 

Making the volcano

To (try) make a model of Mauna Loa, I used the following things:

- Newspaper (lots of it!)

- Cardboard box

- Glue mixture of flour, water and salt

- 750mL plastic bottle

- Paint

- Paintbrush

- Reference picture

Method: 

1. Print out a reference photo. After doing this, we were allowed to start building our volcano. I cut out a section from a cardboard box to make the base on which my bottle and volcano would sit. 

2. I made glue using flour, water and salt to stick my bottle to the centre of my cardboard. 

3. I gathered newspaper and started to rip it into smaller sections. Then, I scrunched them up into 'balls' and dipped them into my glue mixture and stuck them onto my cardboard. I made a ring around my bottle, and spread out from there. I started to pile up more scrunched newspaper, trying to make it narrower so my volcano actually looked like a volcano.

4. After a couple days of drying, I started to form my volcano a bit more. I did this by ripping up newspaper into strips, dipping them into the glue mixture and pressing them down on the scrunched up newspaper. I did this because I had to make a surface which would be easy to paint and look more realistic. I covered my volcano fully using the strips and let them dry. 

5. My final step of making the model of Mauna Loa was to do some painting. I used three colours: green, light green and white. I did do some mixing to create lighter versions of the green paints. Firstly, I painted the lower section of my volcano dark green, I started to fade it as it got closer to the halfway point since my reference photo of the volcano depicted it having an 'ombré effect'. Then I started to paint the upper section, using a mixture of white paint and light and dark green. I blended it with the dark green part and faded it as it got closer to the top for my next section. I made another green which was lighter than the previous for the last section of the volcano and used the same colours again. I painted the volcano using this colour until I reached the bottle. Lastly, I added white paint right around the bottle, and partially spread it down the sides of the volcano since I was feeling quite artistic at the time. 

Here is the end product of my volcano, before it erupted: 

Elephant Toothpaste 

Now that I had a volcano, it needed to erupt and look cool. I used elephant toothpaste to create my lava for my volcano. 

Aim: Make elephant toothpaste

Method: 

1. In a measuring cylinder, measure 30mL of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Pour it into a beaker. 

2. Put a couple drops of food colouring of your choice into the beaker with hydrogen peroxide. Also add a couple of squirts of dish soap. 

3. In the measuring cylinder, measure 30mL of water. Pour it into a SEPERATE beaker. 

4. Take two spatulas of potassium iodide and mix it with the water until fully dissolved.  

Results: 

Discussion:

As mentioned above, hydrogen peroxide is also known as H2O2, meaning it has two hydrogen (H) atoms inside it and two oxygen (H) atoms inside it, meaning its make-up would look like this: 

Hydrogen peroxide looks like normal water or H2O, but adding an extra oxygen atom onto it and turns into an oxidant. This hydrogen peroxide is extremely powerful and isn't sold to the general public because of this. 

The special ingredient in elephant toothpaste is the potassium iodide. It acts as a catalyst or something that speeds up a chemical reaction, in this case it was the hydrogen peroxide breaking down. When the hydrogen peroxide breaks down, it splits up into water and oxygen. The soap bubbles we see erupting from the volcano are filled with oxygen. When the bubbles start to appear, they also give off steam, meaning the elephants toothpaste has not only made bubbles, but an exothermic (heat) reaction too!

Conclusion:

I found this project so much fun! I had a blast getting to make my volcano and trying to make it look like Mauna Loa. My favourite part of making it was probably when I was painting it, I enjoyed mixing the colours to try make the most accurate colour match I could. 

I also enjoyed making the two separate solutions for the elephants toothpaste, I really enjoying doing experiments with chemicals in class and learning how certain ones will react with others. 

My favourite part of this project was seeing my volcano erupt. I felt really proud of myself for putting my work into it and it was really fulfilling seeing it finally erupt!

 I also enjoyed researching about Mauna Loa, it is a such an interesting volcano, which looks colossal. Knowing such a great volcano could erupt is shocking and makes everyday issues like not charging your phone or forgetting your lunch like specks of dust compared to what Mauna Loa could do. It basically brings you back to Earth in a sense. Overall, this project was fun beyond words and will always remember it!

Thanks for reading!