Chemical Reactions (for Parents/Teachers)

In this lab we learned about all sorts of chemical reactions and utilized vinegar and baking soda to see a real chemical reaction occur in front of us. The kids were asked to add different amounts of baking soda a vinegar together and see the difference.

In general you need 1 part baking soda to one part vinegar, but here is the tricky part the vinegar that you buy at the grocery store is not pure vinegar instead it is diluted in water (many bottles say diluted in water to 5% acid strength), this means there is a lot of water a very little vinegar overall, but not to fear it will still react.

Since it is so dilute the kids will pour vinegar in and most likely not have all of their baking soda react but they most likely will note notice. Simply work with them and look at their observations, did they see more bubbles when the vinegar was able to touch all of the baking soda at once, did they see less bubbles when they added less vinegar or less baking soda?

If you want to do an extension activity with the vinegar, you can make hot ice with your vinegar and baking soda solution. Take a look at this "Hot Ice" experiment to learn more.