Backyard Science

We are friends with a family in town that are homeschooling three of their kids (actually, there are six kids in the family, but two have graduated and one is doing her high school work here at the school in Faro). Their mother asked if I would be willing to do some fun science experiments with them throughout the winter and I was more than willing to take it on!

I thought we should start our experiments out with something I have been wanting to try for a while- dropping Mentos into bottles of Diet Coke! The kids met me behind my house and looked rather excited when they saw my wagon full of goodies. I had made a spreadsheet for them to keep track of the data from our different trials (there were 15 in total). We tried varying the number of Mentos added, type of Mentos, size of pop bottle, type of pop, sealed container, Mentos and pop in the mouth, crushed Mentos and even a rocket!!

There were a lot of laughs. Now the kids have to take their data home and come up with some thoughts on each trail. Then they will come back to my house for a discussion on their ideas and finally we will be watching the episode of MythBusters that explains it all much better than I can!

I cannot wait to plan my next experiment with them.

My wagon full of goodies:

Hunter even got in on the action!

Mini explosion!

Filling my sawed off broom handle with Mentos to add to the pop:

Lots of bottles for recycling!

After I launched a successful rocket, Elijah gives it a try with no success!

Throwing this one in the air to see what happens on impact!

BOOM!

My budding scientists!