Exploding Flour
In this activity, students observe the teacher igniting flour when it is in a basic combustion chamber.
Combustion chamber
Diagram of a combustion chamber as used in the exploding flour activity.
By the end of this activity, students should be able to:
understand how surface area of fuel affects fire behaviour – the more surface area, the more quickly ignition will take place.
Download the Word file (see link below) for:
introduction/background notes
what you need
what to do
scientific explanation.
Related content
Fire behaviour explores the variables that influence fire.
These are some common misunderstandings about fire. They acknowledge that children have made reasonable sense of the ideas based on their experience. Keep them in mind while teaching – and address them as they come up.
