Here is a at home experiment making “elephant toothpaste.”
The Science Siblings love an at-home experiment. Paige and Adam Jacobson went the chemistry route with this one, concocting “elephant toothpaste.”
Ingredients:
- 6 tbsp water
- 3 tbsp yeast
- food coloring
- 3 tbsp dish soap
- cup hydrogen peroxide
Start by adding the food coloring to the hydrogen peroxide, then pouring into your desired container. The Jacobsons used a carved pumpkin.
Then pour in the dish soap. Once those are combined, add the water and yeast mixture and get ready for “science magic.”
The Science Word of the Day related to this experiment is “catalyst.”
“A catalyst is something that speeds up a reaction,” Paige said.
“When you mix in the hydrogen peroxide in the yeast, the yeast turns hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, into water, H2O, and oxygen, O2,” Adam said. “And when that oxygen is released, it’s captured by our dish soap, and the oxygen is taken into the bubbles and creates all the foam that we can see here today.”
“It’s called elephant toothpaste because when the reaction happens, it makes a big explosion and the foam kind of looks like toothpaste, but it’s so big, the only animal that could use this much toothpaste would have to be an elephant,” Paige said.