Coke and Mentos

All of your favorite sodas are carbonated with carbon dioxide. When the soft drink is made, carbon dioxide gas is dissolved into the liquid, making a solution. You're probably familiar with solutions of solids and liquids, which could be made by dissolving a solid like sugar or salt in water. In this experiment, carbon dioxide, a gas, was dissolved into the soda. 

For this experiment, all you will need is a bottle of coke, a roll of mentos, eye protection, and some space outside. When the bottle of soda is sealed and sitting in your fridge, the CO2 gas is trapped in solution in the soda. There are several ways of getting the CO2 out of the solution. If you want to prank someone, shaking up a soda will cause some of the gas to come out of solution and the soda will bubble and squirt when it is opened. In our experiment, we will use mentos to get the gas out of solution. Mentos are great for this experiment because the surface of each candy is covered in tiny craters, like the surface of the moon. CO2 bubbles form in each of these craters, called nucleation sites. This happens very rapidly, and the fast buildup of bubbles makes the soda shoot out of the top as a geyser!

Of course, make sure to have on your eye protection and do this experiment outside. You don't want to end up like this lady. Always take safety precautions before doing an experiment!