I’ve wanted to try this one for awhile 🙂 It looked so cool and so simple with no mess. I’m all for that!
The process is simple, fill a balloon with Pop Rocks (a funnel works perfect for this), Secure the end of the balloon to the open bottle mouth, without letting the Pop Rocks fall in. Once you have all your bottles ready, go ahead and lift the balloon and watch to see the balloon inflate.
My kids wrote down their hypothesis about which soda would inflate the balloon the most. I had picked diet coke, but was surprised to see that the regular coke performed much better. The worst performer was the 7up.
Science behind it:
Pop Rocks candy pops because it’s comprised of pressurized carbon dioxide gas. Each of the candy rocks contains a small amount of the gas. The carbon dioxide bubbles make the popping sound you hear when they burst free from their candy shells.
Why does the balloon inflate? The carbon dioxide in the candy isn’t enough on it’s own to cause any inflation of the balloon. That’s why we introduce the soda. The soda also contains pressurized carbon dioxide gas, that’s what is responsible for the carbonation in soda. When the Pop Rocks are dropped into the soda, some carbon dioxide is able to escape and, because the carbon dioxide gas has no where to go in the bottle, it rises into the balloon.
This is a great experiment to teach kids about chemical reactions, and gasses. We had a great time with this one. Definitely worth trying!
Don’t forget to follow me on Pinterest to see what we are going to do next!
So what causes the balloon to inflate? The carbon dioxide contained in the candy isn’t enough to cause even the small amount of inflation you observe in the experiment. That’s where the soda comes into play. The soda also contains pressurized carbon dioxide gas (it’s why we call soda a carbonated beverage). When the Pop Rocks are dropped into the soda, some carbon dioxide is able to escape from the high fructose corn syrup of the soda and, because the carbon dioxide gas has no where to go in the bottle, it rises into the balloon.
– See more at: http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/poprocks#sthash.TXJMMF1W.dpuf
You Might Also Like:
Lovely comments