Mentos and Diet Soda

Mentos and Diet Soda Eruption: One of the most captivating experiments made popular by Steve Spangler.

Supplies Needed:
Various types of diet and/or regular soda (diet has a greater reaction)
Several packs of mentos candy (about 1/2 pack per soda bottle
Funnel or tube (optional)

Procedure:
(Experiment should take place outdoors)

1. Unscrew the soda bottle lid and place a funnel or tube on top (or use your hand as a funnel or tube) to drop the Mentos in the soda.

I asked the kids to make some observations of the Mentos Candy: Describe the candy.  How does it smell?  Taste?  Look?

2. Drop all the mentos, AT THE SAME TIME, into the soda bottle, then QUICKLY RUN AWAY!!! Warning: This is tricky and may take practice.

 If done properly, a huge soda eruption will come flying out of the bottle!!!

Science behind the Fun:
The Mentos reacts with the carbon dioxide in the soda causing foam to spray out of the bottle.
The tiny holes on the surface of the mint mentos expedites the carbon dioxide reaction.
More information may be read at http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_Coke_and_Mentos_eruption

Upon completion of the Mentos and Diet soda experiment, we decided to take it a step further.  We added more Mentos to the Diet Soda tightly secured the lid and each child rapidly shook the soda bottle.  We removed the soda lid and observed a very small reaction of bubbles at the bottom of the soda bottle.