Noah's Fascinating World of STEAM Experiments: Chemical Reactions: A Junior Scientist's Lab Notebook for Learning Scientific Method

Experiment 1

Elephant Toothpaste

The star of the first chemical reaction is hydrogen peroxide.

My mom uses hydrogen peroxide on my skin when I get cuts and scrapes on my knees while practicing my new skateboarding skills! She says it helps to clean the cut by killing bacteria.

Hydrogen peroxide is kept in a dark brown bottle because, when the light touches it, it goes through a chemical reaction and starts to transform into water and oxygen gas (like the air we breathe).

We call this experiment elephant toothpaste because it is bubbly, explosive, and big enough to be toothpaste for a huge elephant! But it’s just pretend toothpaste and not real toothpaste. Unfortunately, we can’t use this to clean a real elephant’s teeth, or human teeth. We are simply doing this experiment to learn.

Junior scientists, let’s explore our own chemical reaction and make some elephant toothpaste!

Activity 1: Hypothesis

One of the first steps a scientist takes when preparing to conduct an experiment is to make an educated guess on what will happen at the end of the science experiment. This guess is called a hypothesis! In this experiment, we are going to mix dish soap with hydrogen peroxide. Write down what you think will happen when we mix everything together. What will it look like? Your prediction is your hypothesis.

Experiment Time!

Let’s begin! Start by gathering all of your materials for the experiment. Here is the list! Remember, none of these materials should be eaten!

Materials

•  500 ml empty water bottle (or similar)

•  Bottle of 3 percent hydrogen peroxide

•  Dish soap

•  1 packet of instant yeast (8 grams)

•  Warm water

•  Food colouring of choice

•  ½-cup measuring cup

•  1-tablespoon measuring spoon

•  ½-tablespoon measuring spoon

•  Funnel

•  Small cup

•  Spoon

•  Paper towel

•  Large dish

•  Timer

Now we have all of our materials ready.

Methods

During the methods section of each experiment, you will follow step-by-step instructions on how to complete the experiment. As a junior scientist, you need to follow these instructions carefully and complete each step exactly as it is written. This will help make sure that you get the expected results at the end of the experiment. The methods section of each experiment will be split into two parts to allow you to watch the experiment and make observations along the way.

Pouring hydrogen peroxide into water bottle using a funnel.

Adding dish soap to water bottle.

Adding food colouring to water bottle.

Let’s dive into part one of the methods for this experiment!

1. Begin by taking your ½-cup measuring cup and pouring the hydrogen peroxide into it. Using the funnel, carefully pour the ½ cup of hydrogen peroxide into your empty water bottle.

2. Next, measure ½ tablespoon of dish soap using the ½-tablespoon measuring spoon. Add the measured dish soap into the same water bottle.

3. Finally, add five to ten drops of your favourite colour of food colouring into the water bottle.

Activity 2: Observations

Before we continue, embrace your artist skills and draw what the water bottle looks like after you added the hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, and food colouring! This is something scientists do all the time. They draw and write out what they see happening in a science experiment every step of the way. This is called documentation.

Experiment Time!

Now that we’ve gone through the first few phases of the experiment, let’s continue to the best part!

Methods Continued

Mixing instant yeast in water for one minute.

Pouring yeast mixture into water bottle using a funnel.

Elephant toothpaste forming.

1. In a small cup, mix together a packet of instant yeast with 3 tablespoons of warm water. Mix with a spoon for one minute. Use a timer to keep track of your one minute of