🌋 Baking Soda Volcano
Mix baking soda and vinegar to create a fizzing, foaming volcanic eruption — and learn why acids and bases react!
🧰 What you need
Safety note: Vinegar is safe but can sting eyes. Keep away from faces and wash hands after. Do this on a tray to catch the overflow.
🔬 Steps
- 1
Place your container on the tray. Add 3 tablespoons of baking soda.
- 2
Add a squirt of dish soap and a few drops of red or orange food colouring.
💡 The dish soap traps the CO₂ bubbles and creates more foam — without it you just get fizz. - 3
Slowly pour in the vinegar — stand back and watch the eruption!
- 4
After it settles, try with more or less vinegar — does the eruption change?
💡 More vinegar = more acid = bigger reaction. Try adding vinegar in several small pours.
🧠 The Science
Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) is a base, and vinegar (acetic acid) is an acid. When an acid and a base meet, they react chemically. This reaction produces carbon dioxide (CO₂) gas — the same gas in fizzy drinks! The CO₂ bubbles get trapped by the dish soap, creating the erupting foam. The reaction is called an acid-base neutralisation reaction. Real volcanoes are powered by completely different forces inside the Earth, but the foaming overflow looks similar!
📚 Related Lessons
- 🌍 Air, Water and Soil — Air, water, and soil are the three pillars of our environment — all living things depend on them working together!
- 🏭 Types of Pollution — Air, water, and soil pollution harm all living things — factories, vehicles, and waste are the main causes!
- ♻️ Reduce, Reuse, Recycle — Reduce what we use, reuse what we have, and recycle what we can — together the three Rs protect our planet!