Cub Scouts- starting with Tigers 2015: STEM Experiment- Elephant Toothpaste

Scoust started a fairly new program that involves STEM.

It's only around 5 years old, from what I understand.

Starting at wolf, your son can start it. Some areas have a large STEM

program but ours doesn't. So, I signed up as his STEM councilor.

Here is a link for more info, if you haven't already signed up your child.

It is a great source for all things STEM in scouts.

http://www.scouting.org/stem.aspx

Even if you don't want to do STEM and just want to entertain your children, this is a cool experiment!

It's called Elephant Foam.

We did this experiment in my STEM class at Scouting University. As soon as Spring Break started, I had to do this. Here is a picture of my son before the experiment and after.

As you can tell, he really didn't want me to disturb his entertainment time on YouTube. After the experiment, he had me do it again. That worked out well because I took a video the 1st time and the 2nd time we took pics.

Remember, BSA has safety rules in place to protect your children. Safety gear is a big deal. Safety goggles is a must, lab coats too but I haven't found any on Amazon yet. These directions were from my class I went to. I just added what I may have done differently.

OK, here is what you need to do:

ELEPHANT’S TOOTHPASTE - KID VERSION

This is a kid-safe version of the popular Elephant's Toothpaste demonstration using common household materials. A child with a

great adult helper can safely do this activity and the results are wonderful.

Materials

• 16 oz. empty plastic soda bottle (preferably with a narrow neck such as those made by Coca-Cola)

• 1/2 cup 20-volume hydrogen peroxide (20-volume is 6% solution, purchased from a beauty supply store) ( Mine was a 40 volume with exactly the same results as in class with the 20- volume)

• Squirt of Dawn dish detergent

• 3-4 drops of food coloring ( I'd suggest the liquid but gel was used by us and it worked) ( Also, at 1st we used just blue. But the 2nd time we turned the yeast pink and the peroxide orange. So if you look at the foam pictures closely, you can see both colors mixed up.)

• 1 teaspoon yeast dissolved in approximately 2 tablespoons very warm water ( I added more water because it didn't want to disolve in the 2 Tablespoons)

• Funnel ( I used a laminated paper because I had no funnel. Remember a scout is thrifty)

• Foil cake pan with 2-inch side’s Safety glasses Lab smock

Experiment

• Have students put on their safety glasses and lab smock. Each student should have in front of them a cake pan, plastic bottle, Dawn in small cup, food coloring, 1/2 cup peroxide, and the dissolved yeast mixture.

• Stand the bottle up in the center of the cake pan. Put the funnel in the opening. Add 3-4 drops of food coloring to the

peroxide and pour the peroxide through the funnel into the bottle. Show a water molecule diagram and a peroxide

molecule diagram, pointing to the extra oxygen that will be set free in the reaction.

• Add the Dawn detergent to the peroxide in the bottle.

• Pour the yeast mixture into the bottle and quickly remove the funnel.

• The students can touch the bottle to feel any changes that take place.

How Does It Work?

Talk about the addition of the yeast as a catalyst, which makes the peroxide molecule release the oxygen atom faster. The teacher

who submitted this experiment claims to have done this with hundreds of students from kindergarten through fifth grade and some

adults who all loved the experiment. It is very easy and safe to do again at home using regular hydrogen peroxide from the

drugstore.

Observations

The reaction creates foam that shoots up out of the bottle and pools in the pan.Ours didn't shoot high but in some YouTube videos it can shoot high. Ours began to come out in a

foamy stream that looks like toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube. The students can play with the foam as it is just soap and

water with oxygen bubbles. ( Our foam was hot vs my classes. I really think it had to do with the peroxide %. So please be careful and touch the foam 1st to make sure!)

The bottle will feel warm to the touch as this is an exothermic reaction. With me, the aluminium pan was also hot when I touched the bottom where the foam was sitting.