Fizzy Chemistry

A classic experiment that Holly and Hudson tried today was mixing vinegar and baking soda to see it's reaction. Before we started we read a little bit on chemistry from our What's Chemistry All About from Usborne, discusses mixing different items to see what will happen, made a prediction and then set to work.

Holly filled some glasses with a couple of tablespoons of baking soda, added a couple drops of food coloring to some of the glasses and left one without. Then she added vinegar. Adding the vinegar caused a fizzy reaction along with a lot of 'oohs and aahs'! On the first one she added green food coloring after the vinegar was in it - that was pretty cool to watch. The other glasses already had food coloring in it so the fizzy reaction was colorful.

After having some fun she and I found some various sources on line to learn what exactly happened. She learned a base and an acid were mixed - the base being the baking soda and the acid being the vinegar and together they created carbonic acid. After reading a bit more she learned that basically these two items mixed will immediately break down into water (the liquid) and carbon dioxide (the fizzy reaction).

This was a very fun activity and inspired wonder in what happens if I mix 'this' and 'this' together....