Short Video

How Does it Work?

For this experiment, all you will need is a glass, shaving cream, water, and food coloring dye dissolved in water. To begin, fill a glass half full of water. Next, add shaving cream to a thickness of your choice, but leave enough room for food coloring and water to be added on top. From there, start adding food coloring and water on top of your shaving cream layer. A thicker layer of shaving cream will be able to hold more water. Eventually, the water will get through your shaving cream and you will see it begin to color the water below the shaving cream. So...what is happening, and what is the point!? Well, this experiment models how clouds hold water. Clouds are capable of holding water up until a point. After that point, the water will begin to fall out of the clouds, which is what we would call rain. In this experiment, the shaving cream can hold back the water until it reaches a maximum threshold. After that, the dyed water will seep through the shaving cream and rain into the air (or water in this experiment!).