Choose the sheet for the learner's age. Each prints on a single page. Build the project first, then fill it in together.
Ages 8-10: Predict, test & record
Name: ______________________Date: ____________
Homemade Science with Bruce Yeany · Hero's Fountain · Ages 8-10
The Fountain With No Pump
Predict, test and record what makes your fountain go and stop.
1. Predict: when you prime it, how high will the water go?
◯ Higher than the basin◯ Just to the top of the basin◯ It will only dribble
2. Try each setup. Measure or describe how high the fountain goes.
Where the floor bottle is
What happened to the fountain
3. Draw your fountain. Add arrows showing where the water goes and where the air goes.
4. What did you find out? What happened when you lifted the floor bottle above the basin?
5. Why do you think the fountain stops when the floor bottle is lifted up high?
Ages 11-14: Explain & design your own test
Name: ______________________Date: ____________
Homemade Science with Bruce Yeany · Hero's Fountain · Ages 11-14
Hero's Fountain: Pressure and Energy
Use your fountain to explain how falling water can lift water.
1. Explain, step by step, how water falling into the floor bottle makes water spray out of the nozzle. Use the words compress and air pressure.
2. Is Hero's fountain a perpetual-motion machine (one that runs forever)?
◯ Yes◯ No
3. Explain your answer using potential energy: where does all the water end up?
4. You want to test whether a bigger drop makes a taller fountain. Name the variable you change, the variable you measure, and two things you keep the same.
5. Run your fair test.
Drop from basin to floor bottle
Fountain height
Notes
6. Why does the fountain slowly get shorter while it runs?
7. Where else is water pushed or lifted by pressure, or by being stored up high? Give one real-world example.
Answer guide for grown-ups
Homemade Science with Bruce Yeany · Hero's Fountain · Answer guide
Answer guide
Ages 8-10: The Fountain With No Pump
Any prediction is fine; it is tested next. (Result: it shoots above the basin.)
Open answer: look for effort and careful observation.
Water: basin down to the floor bottle, and supply bottle up to the nozzle. Air: floor bottle up to the supply bottle.
The fountain runs when the floor bottle is low; lifted above the basin, it stops. Set back down, it starts again.
The water can't fall down into the floor bottle anymore, so nothing squeezes the air, and there is no push on the supply water.
Ages 11-14: Hero's Fountain: Pressure and Energy
Falling water fills the sealed floor bottle and compresses the trapped air, raising its air pressure. That air is connected to the supply bottle, so the higher pressure pushes down on the supply water and forces it up the long tube and out the nozzle.
No
All the water ends up in the lowest (floor) bottle, so overall it loses potential energy, even though some water is lifted above the basin. When the supply runs out, it stops.
Change: the drop (height difference) from basin to floor bottle. Measure: fountain height. Keep the same: nozzle, amount of water, supply bottle height, tubing.
Open answer: look for effort and careful observation.
The floor bottle fills up (the drop gets smaller) and the supply water level falls (the lift gets bigger), so there is less push for more lift. Friction in the tubes also takes some energy.
Examples: a town water tower, a gravity-fed water tank, a water bottle you squeeze, a garden sprayer you pump up.