The Elephant's Toothpaste

In between bringing Jordan home from school and taking Muffin to the Gruffalo's Child, I fulfilled Evan's request for a science experiment.

Some things I learnt while trying to procure the materials for the experiment; Also known as the Elephant's Toothpaste. 

1. It is impossible to find 6% hydrogen peroxide.
2. To acquire hydrogen peroxide of higher concentration than that, a license needs to be acquired. Terrorists use stuff like that to make things that go boom.
3. Hydrogen peroxide on skin is itchy, even if it is 3% hydrogen peroxide.

The thing about doing experiments mid-week, mid day afternoon is that the neighbours kids were all home and Evan's loud exclamations of excitement brought them running over to see what was up.

So, with 5 kids ranging from 8 to 3,
1. We poured hydrogen peroxide mixed with food colouring into a narrow neck mouth of the bottle.
2. Squirt some dishwashing liquid into it. (Dawn smells good and is super bubbly)
3. Mix yeast with warm water and pour it into the bottle.
4. Step back in case the bottle overflows.
5. Watch as the foam snakes its way out of the bottle eliciting screams from everyone. 
6. The kids figured out how turn the yeast into a dependent variable, adding more to see if that was the catalyst that would trigger more foaming.

 

We ran out of peroxide so we're repeating the experiment again. And now, the kids can say "exothermic".