Total fun!  This is absolutely an outside experiment.  If you’re lucky you’ll get your geyser to rocket super high up in the air.  You do have to move quickly to get the mint chews into the bottle and the more mint chews you get in (one package max), the greater the reaction.  So, make sure there is nothing around to get all sticky from the soda, including cars.

trr-soda-geyser-suppliesMaterials

Diet Cola (Or try other carbonated drinks and compare.)

Mint Chews, like Mentos (We’ve never tried fruit chews, but it sounds like they should work too.)

Paper funnel

Empty soda bottle to test the size of your funnel to make sure the chews slide down easily

Hose is helpful for rinsing the area when you’re done.

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The Science Dad Explains

The Diet Soda and Fruit Chews (Mint Chews) experiment can display amazing results. Drop a roll of fruit or mint chews into a two liter bottle of diet soda and ta-da!, a geyser! This reaction is a physical reaction rather than chemical, meaning that none of the reactants change into anything else through the process. In other words at the end you are left with diet soda and fruit or mint chews.  So how?  In the process of making soda, carbon dioxide is added, known as “carbonation” or the fizz of the soda.  There is a lot of it in the soda, much of it dissolved in the liquid.  When the fruit chews are added the rough surface allows the carbon dioxide in the liquid to form bubbles more quickly than normal.  The bubbles are lighter than the liquid causing them to rise and escape the bottle.  The shape of the bottle funnels the carbon dioxide together amplifying the effect.

Sorry the video ended up being a bit blurry in the whole downloading/uploading process.  We’re still new at all this, and if you are wondering why there is a second video, titled Take 2….well, when you fail to push the record button on the device…it will not actually record.  Just a tip for ya.

We actually call it “pop” in our region of Wisconsin- but Soda Geyser just seem more “science-y”.  What do you call it?  What other simple experiments do you like to try?  Share with us in the comments section below.