The Coke and Mentos Experiment is an easy science experiment to do with kids of all ages. Even toddlers and preschoolers will shriek with delight as they watch this chemical reaction take place.
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STEM Activities for Kids
Help your toddlers and preschoolers become the next new scientist or engineer with these fun STEM activities. These are great for getting little learners involved in STEM through hands-on play.
- How to Make A Pom Pom Shooter
- Floating City – STEM activity for Kids
- Building Shapes – STEM for Kids
- Magic Milk
- Magnet Exploration
For more ideas check out 34 STEM Experiments for Toddlers.
Materials Needed
- A large bottle of coke
- A packet of mentos
- A plastic tub
- Hot glue gun and hot glue sticks (optional)
Coke and Mentos Experiment Instructions
Step 1: Use the hot glue gun to glue 6 mentos together.
You can always use more or less mentos if you need to, the number of mentos will depend on how large your bottle of coke is.
Gluing the mentos together is an optional step, but one that I find invaluable when doing this experiment with toddlers and preschoolers. Because the reaction happens instantly, it’s hard to drop all of the mentos in before the coke starts to come out of the bottle.
By creating a mentos tower, the kids can drop all of the mentos in at once.
2. Place your bottle of coke in a large tub.
Once again the tub is optional and is only used to help clean up afterwards. If you prefer, you can do this experiment outside on the grass. Just make sure that your outdoor area has a flat surface you can use. If the bottle of soda falls over before you’ve dropped in the mentos candy, you’re going to be disappointed.
3. Drop your mentos tower into the bottle of coke, stand back and enjoy.
Different Opportunities for Extended Learning
If you are doing this experiment with older children, you can use the scientific method to see which conditions affect the height of the geyser.
Idea 1. Change the Temperature.
Does cold, room temperature, or warm soda affect the amazing eruption? Place a bottle in the fridge, one in the sun and one at room temperature to find out if any of these temperatures create a large eruption.
Idea 2. How many mentos are needed in a coke and mentos experiment?
You’ll need at least 7 – 8 mentos for this activity. However you can always experiment with a different number of mentos to find out. Set up several soda bottles and then place a different number of mentos in each bottle and measure the fountain height to see which worked best.
Idea 3. Which soda works best with mentos?
You can use any type of soda pop you like for this experiment. While it’s believed that Diet Coke has the most impressive results, the truth is that there isn’t much difference in the height of the eruption between diet and regular soda.
The main difference is when cleaning up. Regular coke becomes sticky because of the high sugar content. While diet soda instead contains artificial sweeteners. Cleaning up the mess is another reason why outdoors is the perfect place to do this soda experiment.
However, you can always experiment with different types of soda and see what happens. Mountain dew, classic diet coke, orange soda are all options you can try.
How does the coke and mentos experiment work? Coke and Mentos Explained
Coke, and other carbonated beverages are filled with dissolved carbon dioxide gas. This gas has formed bonds with the water in the soda.
In order for the mentos reaction to take place, the gas needs to break the bonds with the water and interact with the rest of the carbon dioxide gas in the coke. When carbon dioxide interacts with itself it forms gas bubbles. That is why we can see bubbles form when we pour a glass of coke to drink or shake the bottle up.
When you drop a tower of mentos into the bottle, they break the bonds that hold the carbon dioxide gas and water together. Because the mentos tower sinks to the bottom of the bottle, instead of floating, this means that the whole bottle will undergo this reaction at once.
These bubbles come rushing out at great speed and because the coke bottle has a small opening, the bubbles rush high into the air. Creating an eruption effect.
While toddlers and preschoolers aren’t going to understand why this chemical reaction takes place, it’s still cool to learn as an adult. I love Steve Spangler’s explanation of the chemistry involved in this STEM idea.
Are you going to try the Coke and Mentos Experiment with your kids?
Don’t forget to Pin the idea for later.
If you love doing fun science experiments with your kids, check out the Free STEM for Toddlers and Preschoolers eBook. It’s filled with fun experiment ideas and printable resources that are suitable for younger children. Just fill in the form below to become a subscriber, and you’ll be sent a free copy
Coke and Mentos Experiment
The Coke and Mentos Experiment is an easy science experiment to do with kids of all ages. Even toddlers and preschoolers will shriek with delight as they watch this chemical reaction take place.
Materials
- A large bottle of coke
- A packet of mentos
- A plastic tub
- Hot glue gun and hot glue sticks (optional)
Instructions
- Use the hot glue gun to glue 7 - 8 mentos together. This is optional, it just helps to add all of the mentos into the bottle at the same time.
- Place your bottle of coke in a large tub. This is optional, it just makes cleaning up more easy.
- Drop your mentos tower into the bottle.
- Stand back and enjoy.
Notes
If you are doing this STEM activity with older kids, you can experiment with a few different ideas to introduce them to the scientific method.
- Change the temperature of the coke. Experiment to see if cold, warm or room temperature coke changes the reaction.
- Change the number of mentos.
- Experiment to see which soda works best. Coke, diet coke or any other kind of soda. Which one has the best results?