The flying tea bag

In this activity, students observe an empty tea bag that is set alight. The burning causes a column of hot air and gas from combustion to rise above it due to convection. When the bag is light enough, it will be carried up into the convection current.

Equipment for the flying tea bag experiment

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What you will need for the flying tea bag activity.

Rights: The University of Waikato, All rights reserved.

By the end of this activity, students should be able to:

• understand the concept of convection

Download the PDF file (see link below) for:

• what you need

• what to do

• scientific explanation

• references.

Thanks to IOP Publishing for permission to use the attached article, which originally appeared in the IOP journal Physics Education (2004 Vol 39 (1) 22-23).