You've all probably seen the famous youtube video by now or know what happens when you drop Mentos into coke.(if you haven't: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKoB0MHVBvM)
Believe it or not, this isn't magic, it's science! This week we used this experiment to learn about the scientific method, specifically independent and dependent variables. We attempted to figure out why this phenomenon happens, and tried to change some aspects of the experiments to locate the cause. We tried different types of soda, different types of mentos, temperature of soda, and a few other variations. We learned that when you change factors like this, you are manipulating the independent variable, thus causing an effect on the dependent variable. We had fun and made a mess, but most importantly we had fun with science.
Teachers can use this experiment in just about every field: Physics teachers could use it to make rockets, biology use it to teach the scientific method, chemistry could get to the root of why mentos released the CO2 in coke, the options are endless!!!
A really cool and inexpensive device for delivering the mentos to the Diet Coke can be found @ http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/geyser-tube
Note: We chose Diet Coke because for whatever reason, it tends to have the best reaction.
Thanks for Reading!
Mr. Nappen
wow! interesting to read that diet coke has the best reaction; never would have thought so!
ReplyDeleteThe reason for the reaction is because, microscopically, Mentos has millions of pores on it's surface. When you drop them into Coke the CO2 that's ...dissolved in the soda rushes into the pores, combines, and becomes larger. Think of it kind of how when you drop an ice cube into a warm soda it foams up slightly, or how you see champagne bubbles come from the edges if the glass. The pores of whatever is in contact with the surface of the object is what makes it happen.
ReplyDeleteWhen you drop the Mentos in the reaction is fast and violent due to the high amount of dissolved co2 in diet coke and the amount of pores on the Mentos, thus, the soda erupts...
Coke manufactures its diet soda with lots of CO2, more than any of the other brands so which is why its the best to use for the experiment.