This Acids and Bases Experiment Makes Fizzy Bubbles with Baking Soda and Vinegar

cilieauthor Kids, you will love this experiment on acids and bases using some baking soda, vinegar, yogurt, and juice. In this experiment you will learn how acids and bases react when they are put together. Acids and bases are very important to understand when you bake. The right balance will make the perfect cake. If you get it wrong, uh oh! This experiment is going to teach you what an acid does when it is mixed with a base. So let's do this fun experiment together, okay? If you are a teacher or a homeschooling parent, you may want to also look at our activities on probiotics and our recipe for a parfait! It is all a part of this third unit in our cooking club curriculum.

What is an Acid ?

In the food world they are elements like sulphur (say: sul-fuhr), phosphorous (say: fos-for-us), chlorine (say: klor-ee-n), and iodine (say: iy-o-diy-n) that meet up with a gas called hydrogen (say: hy-dro-jen) to make different kinds of compounds which are sour tasting and can destroy metals.

An experiment with Acids and Bases

My teacher at school did an experiment with our class last year to prove that hydrogen can destroy a pop can. She took a few cans of soda and emptied them into another soda can inside a glass jar. The insides of soda cans are coated with something that doesn't let the acid in the soda destroy the aluminum can, but the outsides of the cans don't have that coating. So they get weak and break down. This is called corrosion (say: cor-oh-shun).

Pretty cool, huh?

Well, this is a cooking club, so we aren't going to trash metal in our Sous Club meeting. But we are going to see what happens when acidic foods meet up with alkaline (say: al-kah-liy-n) foods.

Do you know what an alkaline is?

Well, it is very bitter tasting and has a slippery feel. Alkalines can also be very chalky too. They don't combine with hydrogen to make acids. And they don't destroy metals either. Elements like potassium (say: poe-tass-ee-um), calcium (say: cal-see-um), magnesium (say: mag-nee-zee-um) and iron (say: iy-run) are alkaline. Another name for alkaline is base.

So first let's learn a little about acids and alkalines. Scientists have been studying them for over three hundred years. An Irish scientist first discovered this in the 1700s. That's a long time ago!

Scientists use a pH scale to measure acid & alkaline Levels

They look something like this one:

an easy ph chart that lists alkaline compounds and acid compounds for kids

If you are really interested in acids and bases you can do more research about it at home. There are lots of charts online to look at and many cool experiments too. But let's look at our experiment next. We are going to use what we learned today to make next week's recipe, so pay attention!

Our Acids and Bases Experiment will need Special Equipment:

a 2 oz glass with 2 oz of water
4 Tablespoons of baking soda
a cup with 2 oz of yogurt
a glass with 2 oz of vinegar
a glass with 2 oz of juice

Download these Acids and Bases Experiment Sheets

Use one activity sheet for Ages 5-7 and the other for Ages 8-11.

Comments

+1 #2 Admin — Admin 2013-03-01 05:26

Hi!
Just click on the activity sheets in the blue box for directions on how to do the experiment. You can print them out and write in your answers.
There isn't an answer key for this experiment, but if you read the article and follow the steps you'll get the answers on your own no problem.

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