We've been learning about space and the earth, so I decided we'd try to build rockets out of plastic water bottles. After all, you need a rocket ship to travel through space, right?!? The experiment involved mixing vinegar and baking soda inside a plastic water bottle, capping it with a cork, and quickly turning it upside down. The gas inside the bottle would eventually cause the bottle to shoot up and away from the cork.
Our measurements *may* have been off just a bit, since most of our mixtures bubbled and overflowed too quickly for plugging, much less for flipping the bottles over! But a few of them did work the right way. And many more corks went shooting through the air as soon as the bottle was plugged. In the end, it was just fun playing around with the reaction caused by mixing these two substances. The students wanted to do it again and again!
Excuse the poor picture quality ... I filmed and then tried to capture screenshots. Plus the lighting was all weird. But hopefully you can see the fun we had on our first Science Fun Friday!!!
