Activity Introduction

Quick summary: Students make a cola fountain using a bottle of diet cola and a pack of Mentos.

These Snappy Science resources have been created to boost science education in primary schools across Australia. Each lesson is designed to support teachers with the scientific knowledge, ideas and resources to stimulate a sense of wonder and curiosity in their students. Many of the big issues that Australian society will face in the future are around technology, energy, resources and climate change. All of these require students to engage with science – but most of all to enjoy science!

Science at Home: These Snappy Science resources can also be used to engage families in fun science and learning for life. You can download a student friendly version of this activity here and you can also check out the Snappy Science Digital Library.

General capabilities: Critical and creative thinking.

Australian Curriculum content description: This activity is relevant to Science Inquiry Skills across all primary year levels of the Australian Curriculum.

Year 2 Science

  • Different materials can be combined, including by mixing, for a particular purpose (ACSSU031)

Year 5 Science

  • Solids, liquids and gases have different observable properties and behave in different ways (ACSSU077)

Syllabus Outcomes: ST1-12MW, ST2-7PW.

Time required: 10 – 15 minutes.

Resources required: Roll of mint Mentos, 2 litre bottle of diet cola, 13cm x 13cm square piece of paper, sticky tape, small piece of card (such as an index card).

Safety advice: This is an explosive and sticky experiment – make sure you conduct this experiment outside in a place where sticky surface can be easily washed.

Keywords: Diet cola, Mentos, carbon dioxide, fountain.

Cool Australia’s curriculum team continually reviews and refines our resources to be in line with changes to the Australian Curriculum.

Worksheets

Teacher Worksheet

Teacher preparation: 

Brief summary:

Students make a cola fountain using a bottle of diet cola and a pack of Mentos.

Students can use the Predict, Observe, Explain table on the Student Worksheet to describe and reflect upon this experiment.

For more information about how to conduct this experiment and for more of the science behind what happens and why, watch the following clip:

Diet Coke & Mentos - MythBusters (https://youtu.be/LjbJELjLgZg)

You will need:

  • 1 roll of mint Mentos
  • 1 2 litre bottle of diet cola
  • 13cm x 13cm square piece of paper
  • Sticky tape
  • Small piece of card (such as an index card)

What to do:

Step 1. Take all your materials outside to a place where it doesn’t matter if things get sticky or where sticky things can be easily cleaned.

Step 2. To get the best results you need to add several Mentos to the bottle of cola at once. The best way to do this is to create a tube out of your piece of paper that will sit on the top of the bottle. Make sure t

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Student Worksheet

In this experiment you will be adding Mentos to a bottle of diet cola.

Predict

Explain what you think will happen:

Observe

Explain what happened:

Explain

Explain why you think this happened:
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