Have you ever seen a geyser like Old Faithful? Geysers send pressurized hot water shooting from the earth!
You can make your own geyser using diet soda!
Here’s what you’ll need for this outdoor experiment::
- A 2-litter bottle of diet cola
- A pack of Mentos candy.
- Some construction paper.
Curl the construction paper into a small tube just big enough to hold the Mentos.
Take the Mentos out of their wrapping and pour them into the tube so that they are all lined up and will drop easily into the soda.
Remove the lid from the bottle of soda and place it on a level spot on your lawn or driveway..
With your finger over the end to hold in the candy, position the construction paper tube over the opening of the soda bottle.
Allow the candy to quickly slide from the tube into the soda and then get out of the way!
A tall stream of diet soda should immediately shoot from the top of the bottle, like a geyser shoots hot water from the ground.
When you’re done, make sure you clean the area with a garden hose.
So what causes the soda to shoot from the bottle? Soda makers put a chemical called carbon dioxide in the soda to make it fizzy. When you drop the Mentos in the soda, carbon dioxide gathers on the outside of the mints and form bubbles. So many bubbles form that they rise to the surface and shoot out the top like a geyser!
You can try this experiment with different types of mints and different types of sodas. Are the results different? Why do you think so?
