The students tried to create a homemade orange oil lamp to see how long it would burn. Their initial hypothesis was that it would burn for 30 minutes to an hour. In their first attempt, the orange was not dry enough to light. In their second attempt with a dry orange, a different oil was used which did not allow the lamp to light properly. The students concluded that the orange needs to be very dry and they need to experiment with different types of oil to try and get the lamp to light successfully.

1. By: Jhace, Maggie, and Aurora
Orange Oil Lamp

2. Question: How long will a
homemade orange oil lamp burn?
Hypothesis: Our guess is
it will probably burn for 30 minutes
to an hour.

3. Research
We got the experiment from a book called, Try
This! 50 Fun and Safe Experiments For The Mad
Scientist in You! By: Karen Romano Young.

4. Materials
A scout knife, or another sharp
easy-to-control-knife, An orange,
A small bowl or saucer, Olive oil,
matches

5. Results Conclusion
Attempt #1 the first time it didn’t
work. We think it wasn’t dry
enough.
Attempt #2 It did light, but we
think we used the wrong oil so we
hope we will be able to retry it
with a different oil.
Our conclusion is:
The first time we
thought that the orange
wick has to be really dry
to work!
The second time, it was
dry and it still didn’t
work, so now we think
it’s the type of oil.
Back to the drawing
board!