Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Exploding Toothpaste (Elephant toothpaste) with 4th Graders

Science is alive and kicking at BCPS in Belle Chasse.  At the beginning of the year we learned the scientific method through our experiment with Elephant Toothpaste. We  learned what a hypothesis is.  We learned to form a question to be answered through the process of the experiment.  We learned to gather the materials needed, follow the steps, make observations, record data, and draw conclusions.  The experiment was so much fun that we decided to repeat it with one change at the end of the first quarter of this school year.  We increased the strength of the hydrogen peroxide from 3% to 30%.  You can see the results in the video link below.

http://youtu.be/MVY_5prWmdo

We used the book by Steven Spangler, "Fire Bubbles and Exploding Toothpaste," to perform this experiment.
We were enjoying exploding things so much that we decided to try the mentos in coke experiment as well.  After our attempts, we then wrote in our science notebooks any comparisons we saw between the exploding toothpaste and the exploding mentos in coke.
Here's our video on that:

http://youtu.be/Wam0H9fDaXg

Our class really enjoys discovering science the way real scientists do!

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