DIY Friday: Texas Tornado!

Project #3 for our DIY Meteorologist badge was to make a TORNADO! I decided to personalize our tornado project to really make it hit home with the little voyagers. As the family historian, I had already researched Sherman's Black Friday, the deadly cyclone (tornado) that killed the little voyagers' great-great-great-great grandparents back in 1896. 

First, we located Sherman, Texas on our little United States map. The big map is a blown up aerial map of Sherman, Texas, drawn in 1891, five years before the tornado.

I showed the little voyagers a family photo of the surviving daughter, their ggg-grandma, and her family. This grandma happens to have the same given name as their mommy.

Next I gave them a brief version of the account in the book linked above, including a few gory details to emphasize the dangerous powers of tornadoes...

Then we looked at some pictures of the wreckage left by the tornado.

We then located the street the grandparents lived on and a few landmarks mentioned in the book to help us re-trace the approximate path of the tornado through town.

Next, Rosetta marked the wind directions,just prior to the tornado according to witness accounts in the book. (The book states a weather vane on a Presbyterian church showed the wind blowing one direction, and across town at the Oil mills, it was blowing in the opposite direction.)

Finally, we watched a couple of real tornado videos to get an authentic sense of how powerful the winds can be.

Then it was time to build our own tornado!

Materials Needed:

two plastic bottles - 1 or 2 liter (the openings must match up exactly)

water

duct tape

food coloring (optional)

glitter (optional - represents debris)  

Fill one bottle about 3/4 full, then add a few drops of food coloring, if desired.

Then add your glitzy debris, like Saralina is doing here.

Invert the empty bottle, line up the mouths, exactly and tightly tape them together with duct tape. Make sure this is very secure; you don't want "blue" water spilling out and staining your surroundings!

Time to create a tornado! 

Flip the bottles and give a swirl.

See the tornado?

The little voyagers really enjoyed this activity, and they each got several chances to swirl it themselves. There is a bit of a knack to getting a "tornado swirl" going, so it takes a little practice.

 

But as you can see, mama voyager's got it mastered!