Science is fun. Science experiments are fun. Some give a big reaction. Some give a small reaction. Some are loud. Some are quiet. Some make a big mess. We can do some fun experiments at home. Do you know any?
Look at these forks, knives, and spoons. They’re made of silver. Sometimes, silver gets dirty. We can make them clean again.
First, put some hot water and foil into a bowl. Be careful pouring the hot water into the bowl. Next, put the silver into the bowl. Then add baking soda, and watch the reaction. What do you observe? The silver becomes clean. That’s an easy experiment to try.
This is a fun and colourful experiment. You will need some candy, a plate, and water. Place the candies on a plate. You can make a design with the candies. Pour some warm water over the candies. Watch the colours mix with the water. What colours do you see? Do any of the colours combine?
Let’s make some rainbow milk. Put some milk onto a plate. Use a dropper to add food colouring to the milk. Place small drops of colour onto the top of the milk. Use a dropper to add dish soap to the plate. What do you see? All the food colouring starts to move. It looks like the colours are dancing. It’s so fun, and easy to do.
Have you made foam at home? It’s easy to make, but messy. Pour some vinegar into a bottle. Add some baking soda. The vinegar reacts with the baking soda and makes foam. You can add food colouring to make colourful foam. You can build a mini volcano and make it erupt. Many students make foam volcanoes for science class.
This is elephant toothpaste. It is like the foam experiment, but more explosive. Elephant toothpaste is easy to make. You only need a few ingredients. You combine those ingredients, and an explosive reaction occurs. Foam comes out of the container really fast.
To make elephant toothpaste, you need to measure the ingredients carefully. You should also wear your safety goggles. You should also ask an adult to help you.
Some scientists have made giant elephant toothpaste. This scientist made a swimming pool of elephant toothpaste. It’s really cool to see.
My favourite home experiment is to mix cola and Mentos. Mentos are a kind of candy. They’re minty, and chewy, and yummy. If you add Mentos to cola it causes a reaction. The cola fizzes and sprays out of the bottle. It is so messy, but really fun to see.
What other fun experiments do you know? What other fun experiments have you done?
Video Transcript
Hello, this is Anne from Antiques Avenue. Today I'm going to show you a really quick and easy method of cleaning silver.
First of all, you have your grubby silver objects. Now these need to be silver without any other bits attached. If they've got crystals in or plastic or anything colored on them, then you can't use it. It's just got to be all silver.
So, the quick way to clean them is to take a glass bowl which I've lined with aluminum foil. As you can see, the shiny side up. I'm told it only works with the shiny side.
You place your silver objects in the bowl. Now what I've got here is some boiling water which isn't going to hurt them at all and is the main reason why you can't use anything with any plastic or crystal or stones in. And I'm just going to add a little bicarbonate of soda.
Give it a second. Just whiz that round a bit. And as you can see already, much cleaner. Just takes a minute.
What happens is there's some sort of chemical reaction and the all the tarnish from the silver gets attached attracted to the foil, which is really, really useful, isn't it?
I'm told you can use washing soda. They're coming better already. But this avoids all the white haze that you get. Right, I'm just going to drain off the water. Let's take a look.
Ooh, they're a bit warm. Now I think a polish with a little cloth and they'll be perfect. Come back with that.
From grubby to shiny in just a few seconds.
Hope you like that. Quick, easy, clean, and cheap. Thank you.
Video Transcript
The Mythbusters are going to have a blast. The most common theory about what's going on in this reaction between the candy and the soda is what's called nucleation. Basically, the idea is that the surface of the candy is covered with microscopic pits and lots of more surface area than you can actually see. can actually see. And each little pit, each little corner provides what's called a nucleation site or a place where a carbon dioxide bubble can form and escape.
Look at a Mentos close up and it's like the surface of the moon and that might be the candy key. Drop one in cola and every tiny crater provides a site where a CO2 molecule can change to gas. Because Mentos are so pitted, the theory is that millions of CO2 bubbles are formed in a very short space of time.
And because the candy sinks and this rapid release of gas happens at the bottom of the cola, you get that famous fountain.
To test this nucleation theory, they're going to start with a control. One regular mint Mentos dropped in soda water. And sure enough, it gets the bubbly party started. Now to do a comparison. These two candies are made by the same manufacturer, manufacturer and as far as I'm aware even using the same process. But the colored version of this actually has a glazing over it.
It's a wax coating or a sealer that inhibits the nucleation process that the other one achieves quite readily. The shiniest surface should lower the nucleation sites, meaning less of an immediate eruption. That's not doing anything more than the wall of the plastic bottle itself. Sure enough, with the smooth Mentos, there ain't no whiz with the fizz. The Mythbusters can say they finally cracked the case of the candy and cola cascade.