Thorough Directions for a Mentos Experiment

When you drop Mentos mint candies into a bottle of soda, they create a geyser because the gelatin and gum arabic in the Mentos break the surface tension of the soda. This alone, however, is only the basis of a good experiment. A legitimate science experiment requires hard data that supports a hypothesis. You can turn a typical Mentos demonstration into a real experiment by trying to figure out whether diet soda or regular soda reacts more strongly with Mentos.

Instructions

1

Research the differences between regular and diet soda, as well as why Mentos candy creates a geyser when dropped into soda. Create a hypothesis about which type of soda would produce a larger geyser, based on your research.

2

Open one bottle of regular soda in a large, grassy area.

3

Hold a Mentos mint candy directly over the opening of the soda bottle.

4

Drop the Mentos candy into the soda bottle. Do not touch the bottle during the resulting geyser.

5

Pour the soda remaining after the reaction into a graduated cylinder and measure its quantity. Record your data.

6

Repeat this experiment with the remaining bottles of regular soda and record your data.

7

Add up the five measurements and divide them by five to get the average amount of soda left in the bottle after an explosion.

8

Repeat this process with five bottles of diet soda. Compare the two averages to see which soda-and-Mentos combination caused more soda to explode out of the bottle.

9

Evaluate your hypothesis to decide whether it was correct or incorrect.