A sparkler is a kind of firework. It burns over a long period of time to give a brilliant shower of sparks.

Sparklers are fast-burning things. As you know, burning needs a fuel, a source of oxygen and heat. Normally the heat might come from a match, the oxygen is in the air, and the fuel might be a piece of paper. But if you want something to burn faster and make a sparkler, you need more air. So what we have to do is to get a mixture of something with lots of air, a fuel, and something to make sparks, all stuck on a stick. This is how it is done:

First, let's see how to make the sparks. Sparks are made when a metal like iron or aluminium is ground into a powder and then made very hot. The powder particles catch fire and glow very brightly for a fraction of a second.

The fuel is often sugar! It is mixed with a glue to hold everything on the stick. The extra oxygen comes from adding another powdered chemical. This is mixed in, followed by the metal powder. Now the mixture (which is like a dark-coloured glue) is coated on to the stick, usually by dipping the stick in a tub of the mixture.

When it is dry and hard, you have a sparkler.

Notice that we have to heat the mixture to make it burn, so we heat it with a match.

Notice also that, with the extra oxygen, the sparkler burns at a very high temperature. That is what makes the iron or aluminium burn. So never touch burning sparklers.

They are reasonably safe because the burning particles of metal are so small they cool in the air very quickly and so are not likely to catch alight anything they land on. All the same, do everything to be safe, as the video shows.

Sparklers contain chemicals, so they should not be burned on cakes, or you may end up eating the ash!