Question

When baking soda reacts with vinegar, one of the products produced is the gas carbon dioxide. You are charged with creating 3 different sized carbon dioxide flled balloons. Propose your method for creating and trapping 3 different sized carbon dioxide balloons if you are given the following supplies: 3 flasks each with 100 mL of vinegar, 3 balloons, and 30 grams of baking soda. (Hint: Consider Avogadro's Law and how you can make different amounts of carbon dioxide from the supplies provided)

Answer 1

These baking soda and vinegar balloons were so much fun! Mix everything together and watch as the reaction creates carbon dioxide and inflates the balloons! As far as science experiments go, this is a pretty simple one. I love that we had all of the materials needed for it at home already, and that it was quick and easy to put together! And on top of that, it was pretty darn cool to watch the balloon inflate all by itself!

My kids LOVE balloons. I swear, every time I give them a balloon, they find a way to entertain themselves with it for hours (or until it hits the popcorn ceiling and it pops – EEK!). Whenever I wrap presents (I keep the balloons with my ribbons and bows), they always sneak one out, and instantly put it in their mouths and start blowing. And when that fails – they are only 5 and 3 years old, so they definitely don’t have the lung power yet to blow them up by themselves – they hand me a wet balloon and say “Mommy, can you blow this up?”. Who doesn’t love blowing up a soggy balloon!? So we were all pretty excited that we could blow up balloons another way, without using our mouths!