Tealight oxygen experiment

See what happens when you place a glass over a lit candle! This experiment is intended for pre-k students and is appropriate for ages of 3+.

Lit tealights with glasses on a table

Materials

• 
  2+ different sized glass cups
• 
  3+ tealight candles
• 
  Matches or lighter
• 
  Stopwatch (optional)

Form a hypothesis

What will happen when you put a glass over a candle?

Will the candle go out faster under the small glass or the large glass?

Experiment

Get two to three glasses of different sizes. Light 3-4 different tealights (1 + number of glasses you have)

Leave one tealight uncovered. Cover each tealight with a different glass. Optional: Start a timer.

Watch the candles go out. If you are using a timer, write down the time at which the light goes out.

Replication

Optional: Repeat the experiment. Each time you run the experiment, this is called a "trial."

Results

What happened when you put the glasses over the tealight? Which tealight went out first? Which tealight went out last? Was your hypothesis correct?

If you did multiple trials, were your results exactly the same?