Mentos Geyser

Things You Will Need

A roll or box of mentos
A 2 liter bottle of diet soda

Note: You can use regular soda, but diet soda is easier for cleaning up because it doesn’t have any sugar.

Steps:

1. This experiment is probably better done outside on a huge lawn or field, away from crowds, vehicles, or anything that you don’t want covered in soda.

2. Open the bottle of soda. Set it on the ground or on a table, someplace level, so that it will not fall over.

3. Unwrap the Mentos. You’ll need to drop all of the Mentos into the bottle at the same time. We used an old plastic “test tube” that my son had from a little lab kit he has, and put all the Mentos in them and then turned it upside down so that they all fell into the bottle at the same time.

4. Drop the Mentos candies into the bottle and haul butt. (get out of the way quickly!)

5. The bottle of soda erupts like a geyser. It’s really cool.

Have fun! And make sure you buy extra 2 liters and packs of Mentos, because the kiddos will want to do it more than once!

Ideas:
Discuss with your kids what they think makes the soda erupt from the bottle. Explain to them what you think causes it. There are several different theories as to what makes the soda bottle erupt.