Mentos and Diet Coke!

Today we decided to see if Mentos and Diet Coke really do make a Coke fountain!  And just for 'fun' I thought we'd come up with some other hypothisises (hypothi?).  So I gathered my stuff:

2 liter of Diet Coke, an empty 20 oz bottle, white vinegar, baking soda, baking powder, Mentos, a few cups, and a pen and paper for taking notes

I poured some of the diet coke into the empty bottle and then took everything outside (mostly because I didn' want to clean up the mess afterward).  We started by trying to decide what would happen.  Owen decided both bottles would make a Coke explosion.  Brenner didn't care, he just wanted to put the Mento in the bottle. 

First the small bottle:

Add the first Mento...

Huh.  Not much happened.

Let's try a second Mento!!

That didn't help much.  So we tried to figure out why.  We talked about what happened when I poured the Coke from one bottle to the next.  We know it fizzed a lot.  So maybe too much of the carbonation was lost?  Is it the carbonation that reacts to the mento?  Hmm... Let's try the other bottlee!

One Mento...

followed by a pop fountain explosion!!  Woo Hoo!!

I wonder if we can drink from the fountain?

We can try!!

Owen decided it was easier to just pick it up and drink!!

We tried adding a second Mento, and got some fizz, but it definitely wasn't the same!  So it must be the carbonation that reacts.  Cool!  So will baking soda and vinegar do the same?  How about baking powder and vinegar?  Let's see!

Baking soda and vinegar definiely react!  Awesome! (O: Hey, isn't that what we used in the volcano science experiment I got for Christmas?!)

Almost out of vinegar, but the baking powder didn't do much.  Owen did notice that it made deep holes in the pile of powder.  Maybe it will become like a fossil!

We decided that it must be a similar chemical reaction in the Diet Coke and mentos as it is in the baking soda and vinegar.  And that there must me some kind of reaction with the vinegar and baking powder, but not like the other two. 

I love when we can sneak a little thinking in with our mess making!!