Kids love science! You can bring the science lab to your kitchen with a few simple ingredients and items found around your home.
Fuel Georgia, Your Natural Gas Neighbor, is proud to introduce The Fuel Lab! We gathered a few of our friends together this week to talk about chemical reactions that create gas.
- Plastic water bottle
- Large balloon
- White vinegar
- Baking soda
- Small funnel
- Using a funnel, pour 1-2 spoonfuls of baking soda into the opening of the balloon. You’ll need to shake it a bit to get it down inside the balloon.
- Use the funnel again and pour some vinegar into the plastic bottle until it is about an inch or two deep. Exact amounts do not matter.
- Carefully stretch the balloon’s opening around the mouth of the bottle, leaving it hanging down until you are ready for the reaction.
- Do not allow any of the baking soda to fall into the bottle while attaching it.
- Also, make sure the balloon is on tightly the bottle, or it could fly into the air, dropping vinegar and baking soda everywhere!
- When you are ready to see the chemical reaction, lift up the balloon, allowing the baking soda to fall into the bottle.
- This is when the fun starts! Baking soda and vinegar create an awesome chemical reaction. The gas from combining the two will cause the balloon to inflate. The more gas produced, the larger the balloon will get.
When the vinegar and baking soda combine, there is a reaction between an acid and a base. Vinegar is the acid and baking soda is the base. This reaction between the two causes a gas called carbon dioxide to bubble and foam. The gas has nowhere else to go, blowing up the balloon.
While you’re working through this fun experiment, take the opportunity to talk about safety around natural gas. A natural gas leak smells like rotten eggs or a skunk-like odor. If you smell an odor like rotten eggs or a skunk-like smell, get out of the house right away and find an adult. Natural gas is lighter than air, so it will rise and spread out across available spaces if not contained. Also if you use natural gas in your home, make sure that you have a carbon dioxide detector. The Environmental Protection Agency recommends placing the detector on a wall about 5 feet above the floor. Regularly check its battery like you do for your smoke detectors.
See you next month for another fun experiment in The Fuel Lab!