The Marvelous Coke Experiment

In writing we have been doing some experiments and learning how to write like a scientist. Our first experiment was the coke and mentos eruption. We had to observe very carefully and be specific with our directions when writing up the procedure, so that anyone could replicate our experiment at home.

Here is our write up

Experiment Writing

Our Question/What we want to find out?:

How high will the geyser go if I add 11 mentos to a 2.25ltr bottle of diet coke? How long will the geyser last before it runs out of energy?

Our hypothesis/Predictions:

We think the geyser will go 2m into the air. We think the geyser will last for 5-10 seconds

Materials/What we will use:

11 Mentos 1x 2.25ltr bottle of diet coke (Preferably warm or at least at room temperature) 1x Geyser tube (Purchased from the 2 dollar shop) you could make your own 1x safe area to complete the experiment (Coke will go everywhere)

Process/The steps we will take:

Unwrap the mentos from the packet. Drop the mentos into the geyser tube ensuring that the stopper pin is in. Screw the lid back onto the geyser tube. Open bottle of diet coke carefully, try not to shake it up. Attach geyser tube to the bottle, screw on carefully. Pull pin and run!

Observations/what we saw/diagrams:

As Hamish dropped the Mentos in the 2.25ltr coke bottle, it started to fizz up at the bottom and then the geyser spat out, the geyser went up just above 3 metres. It lasted for 10.89 seconds. As the geyser reached up high it sort of flaked out like a fountain. As it got longer it slowly came down back into the bottle, and fizzed out. Once it was over you could see the mentos floating in the bottom. Only ⅓ of the coke was left. The rest of the bottle was filled with coke foam.    Anna Our hypothesis was that the eruption would last 5-10 seconds and be 2m tall. But the experiment confirms it was 3m tall and lasted 10.89 seconds. Also the inch diameter was 4 inches. The best way to describe how it reacted is: the explosion went up like a stream then came down in separate frothy bubbles. There was only 1 third of coke left in the bottle, the rest was froth. Emma C

Conclusion/Answer to our questions:

A1: The geyser went above 2 meters. The geyser actually went just above 3 meters. A2: As the geyser went up, it stayed up for 10.89 seconds. Anna