The Amazing Alka-Seltzer Rocket
1. Put on safety glasses.
2. Divide the Alka-Seltzer tablet into pieces
3. Fill the film canister with varying amounts of water and drop the tablets into the canister
4. Quickly seal the canister with the lid (make sure it’s completely closed)
5. Watch the cap fly off and upward
6. See what happens when the water amount or tablet amount changes
7. Go ahead and experiment!
How does it work?
Carbon dioxide gas builds up so much pressure the lid is forcibly launched. With an Alka-Seltzer tablet, the CO2 is produced as a result of a chemical reaction.
The fizzing you see when you drop an Alka-Seltzer tablet in water is the same sort of fizzing that you see when you mix baking soda and vinegar. The acid mixes with the sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) to produce bubbles of carbon dioxide gas. If you look at the ingredients of Alka-Seltzer, you will find that it contains citric acid and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). When you drop the tablet in water, the acid and the baking soda react to produce carbon dioxide gas. The gas keeps building up until finally the top pops off.
We can thank Sir Isaac Newton for what happens next. When the build up of carbon dioxide gas is too great and the lid pops off, Newton's Third Law explains why the film canister flies across the room - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Diet coke and Mentos Geyser
Materials:
· 2 L bottle diet coke
· ½ pack of Mentos
· Steve Spangler tube for Mentos
Instructions:
1. Go outside or somewhere you do not mind getting messy
2. Stand diet coke bottle upright, unscrew lid
3. Place tube on bottle
4. Drop mentos into bottle
5. Watch explosion and run like mad!
Objectives:
1. Teach kids soda contains CO2. When bottle is opened, lots of CO2 is released. CO2 escapes from liquid by forming bubbles
2. Adding mentos increases the surface area for bubbles to form. Therefore, a bigger explosion occurs!
From: http://www.stevespanglerscience.com