Explorers

In May 2010 the Explorers celebrated their annual pop bottle geyser festival.

This activity takes advantage of a phenomenon known as “nucleation,” in which bubbles form explosively in soda when given a suitable surface to latch onto. And when we say explosively, we MEAN explosively, as those club members who had not experienced this before found out for themselves.

The twist this time around was testing a couple of different ways of pressurizing the bottles to make the eruption even taller. These ways consisted of two little bottle “extensions,” one purchased and one homemade, that screwed onto the bottles and had smaller holes than the bottles. Those smaller holes increase the pressure of the liquid being forced out of the bottles by the bubbling action.

And the best part of all about this experiment is that once everyone is good and soaked with soda, Mr. Ramsey sends them on their way home to be their parents’ problem!

To see some photos from our exploding pop bottle session, check out the Gallery. To discover more about this activity and what nucleation really is, click here to see one of our prior sessions.

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