How to Make a Snow Volcano

We gathered up the last remaining bits of snow this afternoon to make a Baking Soda Volcano using snow! A snow volcano is a great way to have some fun in the snow while learning and experimenting.

I piled up a heap of snow around a small glass jar, making the top of the snow level with the top of the jar, added the ingredients for the baking soda and vinegar reaction and stood back to watch the snow volcano erupt!

Snow Volcano - multicoloured snow volcano made using snow, food colouring, baking soda and vinegar

How to make a snow volcano

What you need to make a baking soda volcano eruption

Two spoonfuls of baking soda (bicarbonate of soda )

One spoonful of washing-up liquid ( dish soap )

a few drops of red food colouring

30 ml vinegar

Snow

Small container

How to make a snow volcano using baking soda and vinegar

Add everything except the vinegar to the container.

Carefully shape a volcano shape around the container using snow.

Stand back, get ready……add the vinegar and watch the eruption! If it doesn’t work so well, add a bit more washing-up liquid and vinegar and give it a good stir.

I loved how easy this was to make and how great the red looked against the snow! It was also super easy to clean up,

Extension Task

Can you make a different-coloured snow volcano? We made lave using every colour of food colouring we could find.

FREE Snow Volcano Printable Instructions

Download a free snow volcano instruction sheet.

Baking soda snow volcano instruction sheet

How does a baking soda volcano work?

Vinegar (an acid ) and bicarbonate of soda ( an alkali ) react together to neutralise each other. This reaction releases carbon dioxide, a gas which is the bubbles you see; these bubbles make the washing up liquid bubble up to give the reaction shown above.

Another idea is to make a multi-coloured snow volcano. To do this, we used a thick card to divide the central container in half and added yellow food colouring to one half and red food colouring to the other half.