Magic Balloons

Learn the chemistry of how to produce a gas from solid and liquid.

Gather baking soda, vinegar, a medium sized water bottle, a balloon, and a funnel.

Fill ⅓ of the water bottle with vinegar.

Use the funnel to fill half of the balloon up with baking soda.

Put the balloon over the water bottle, pinching the balloon to make sure no baking soda goes in.

Lift the balloon so that the baking soda falls into the water bottle and observe the reaction.

Science Explanation

When you mix baking soda and vinegar together a chemical reaction takes place. In this reaction the solid and liquid mix together to produce new substances. One of these new substances, or products, is a gas called carbon dioxide that fills up the balloon.
Where have you heard of carbon dioxide before? It’s the gas we exhale when we breathe!
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Vinegar and baking soda are common household items, but they have scientific names too. In science, vinegar is called acetic acid. Baking soda is called sodium bicarbonate.
When we mix vinegar particles (also known as molecules) and baking soda particles, a chemical reaction takes place. A chemical reaction is the rearrangement of matter. Matter is the “stuff” that makes up everything. Humans, plants, tables, rocks, water, soup, the air we breathe; all are made up of matter.
In this chemical reaction, some carbon particles and oxygen particles from the vinegar and baking soda combine to create CO2 gas, otherwise known as carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is a product of this chemical reaction. CO2 gas fills up the balloon without us blowing into it!
Where else have you heard of carbon dioxide? It’s the gas we exhale when we breathe! It’s also the gas responsible for the global warming of our planet today.
When looking into the reaction itself, the molecules in the vinegar and baking soda rearrange themselves to form completely different things!
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Written by Lance Evensen From our friends at KiwiCo