Kate's Corner: Expanding Pop Rocks

It's summer break so a lot of us may be drinking more soda and eating more candy than we usually do. In this Kate's Corner, we are going to use both of these to learn!

Here's what you'll need:

- Any bottle of soda

- Pop Rocks candy

- A balloon

- A funnel

With the funnel, pour your pop rocks into your balloon. Now, secure the balloon onto the top of your soda bottle. When you're ready, pull the balloon up so that the pop rocks drop into the soda. Stand back and watch what happens.

The balloon inflates!

So what's happening here?

Well pop the pop from pop rocks is a small bubble of pressurized carbon dioxide. Now the small pop rock pebbles don't have enough carbon dioxide to inflate the balloon. That's where you bring in the carbonated soda drink. The pop rocks get coated in bubbles and gas begins to escape both the the candy and the soda and fills up the balloon.

You can take this experiment a step further by trying different sodas and seeing which one makes the balloon expand this most.