Controlled Fizz

I think everyone has made a baking soda volcano at some point; we have actually done it several times. We have also added dawn dish soap to get foam when we made our Fairy Potion.  This time I wanted to try something different.  Something that might contain the reaction a bit more.  I added oil.

To really see the difference we used vinegar as one control and vinegar and Dawn dish soap as a second control.  The third glass contained vinegar with a layer of vegetable oil.

First we added baking soda to our plain vinegar and got an erupting glass of fizz!

Then we added baking soda to our vinegar and dish soap and got an erupting glass of foam.

Finally we added baking soda to our glass with the vinegar and oil.  The baking soda immediately started making bubbles, but it had a hard time getting past the oil.  So instead it created a fizz at the top of the glass very similar to what happens when you pour warm soda or ice.  

After it calmed down a little you could see the bubbles moving through the oil similar to the Lava Lamps we made last year.

  The oil allowed us to control the reaction and not make a huge mess!

 Knowing it would grab onto the oil,  I wanted to see what would happen if we added Dawn dish soap.  So in it went! We gave it a little stir, and out came foam!  The dish soap grabbed the oil allowing the bubbling vinegar underneath to escape the glass!

I think this experiment definitely demonstrated how adding different things can change the end result! 

The girls had a great time playing in all the bubbles afterward too!