To celebrate Science Week, Year 3 have have answered this year’s theme ‘What are you curious about?’ with another question: what will happen when we mix Coca Cola with Mentos and why?
We organised ourselves into pairs and we were each given a measuring cylinder, a bottle of coke and a Mentos sweet. We filled our measuring cylinder to approximately 50mls (the test wasn’t made unfair if we all had different amounts of coke because we weren’t comparing each other’s) and dropped a Mentos sweet so we could observe what happened. Unfortunately, very little happened – only a little fizzing – so we returned to the courtyard downstairs (where we could make more of a mess) the next day to redo the experiment.
Because of the unsuccessful first attempt, we decided to change the question to ‘how can we create a reaction when we combine Coke and Mentos?’ This meant repeating the experiment in different ways:
- By using 50ml of Diet Coke in a measuring cylinder and adding 1 Mentos sweet
- By using 50ml of Diet Coke in a measuring cylinder and adding several Mentos sweets
- By using a cupful of Diet Coke in a plastic cup and adding 1 Mentos sweet
- By using a cupful of Diet Coke in a plastic cup and adding several Mentos sweets
- By using a 2 litre bottle of Diet Coke and adding 1 Mentos sweet directly into the bottle
- By using a 2 litre bottle of Diet Coke and adding several Mentos sweets directly into the bottle
We found that we had similar results as the first time when we transferred the Coke from the bottle into a separate container like a cup or a measuring cylinder. The best reaction by far was when we added Mentos sweets directly into the 2 litre bottle of Diet Coke and this was the reaction we were looking for.
We learned a lot from this experiment: not only that it works better from the bottle but also that it’s OK for a Science experiment not to work. The key to success in Science is to observe, evaluate and reflect upon the experiment, then make the necessary amendments or changes and try again. Well done Year 3!
