It’s tough to really demonstrate the Mentos Geyser Tube in an exhibit hall filled with teahcers… until we created the Mentos Geyser Chamber. It’s a plastic box that measures 4 feet square and 7 feet tall. It’s the perfect enclosure to launch off a few hundred Mentos Diet Coke geysers. The only other thing you need is someone to stand inside the box for a few hours. Most of the time, Drew Vriesman is an undergraduate at the University of Colorado, Boulder, studying marketing. But when he puts on his intern hat at Steve Spangler Science, he’s never quite sure what to expect. Drew Vriesman and Taylor Marsh took turns launching geysers at the NAEYC 2008 conference in Dallas. Combined they launched 700 erupting Diet Coke geysers using over 4,000 MENTOS® Chewy Mints. The interns spent about 20 hours in the Geyser Box over three days and entertained (or amused) about 15,000 teachers who stopped by the Steve Spangler Science booth.
If you attended the annual NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) conference last week in Dallas, Texas, it wasn’t hard to find the Steve Spangler Science booth. All you had to do was listen for the shouts of surprise as we launched over 600 Mentos Geysers with the Geyser Tube™ in our own take on the classic dunk tank… the Boy in a Box. It was great to see the teacher reactions when they pulled the string and sent a blast of Coke raining down on our never-tiring Boys in a Box.
As my team can attest, I lost my voice at the conference… just like I do every year… from explaining to everyone who passed by the science behind the Mentos and Diet Coke reaction. It’s important as educators that we don’t just drop some Mentos in a Coke and call it science. The resulting geyser is a great effect, but you are missing the key piece of the lesson. Shoot off a geyser, then listen as your students start to ask questions… “Why does that happen?”… “What if we used more Mentos?”…
If you’ve followed us over the years, you know that NAEYC (the National Association for the Education of Young Children) is the first teacher conference where we introduced the famous Mentos Geyser Experiment. In 2006, we launched 700 geysers in the open air on the trade show floor. The Geyser Chamber made its debut in 2007 to show how the geyser shoots 30 feet in the air. This year it’s Boy in a Box… a clear plastic container measuring 4′ x 4′ x 7′ where geysers fly at the rate of 30 per hour (watch the streaming video). It’s easy to find the Steve Spangler Science booth in the NAEYC exhibit hall - just listen for the screams followed by applause.
When we invited our customers to show us their Summer Science Camps with You Tube videos, Cheryl Purdum when above and beyond the call. Any teacher who is willing to dress up as a Mad Scientist to win a gift certificate to our website clearly deserved that winning title.
Cheryl followed up with us later in the summer to let us know that her summer camp was a huge success. Her pictures were such a treat… I loved looking at the kids’ facial expressions and to truly see a sense of wonder. The color mixing activities looked like they were a big hit, and the cornstarch walk was a riot. Just the look on their faces tells the whole story!
I can’t think of anyone who could have put the gift certificate to better use. Thanks so much, Cheryl, for your enthusiasm for teaching science and for all that you do to create experiences for kids that they’ll never forget.
It’s probably the most asked question we get… “How exactly does that experiment with the Mentos and Diet Coke really work?” From the outset (nearly eight years ago), we hypothesized that the exploding soda was a physical reaction, and the key factor in the release of carbon dioxide was the microscopic pits on the surface
of the chewy mint. However, there was no real scientific study that anyone could point to as the definitive answer… until now. In the June issue of the American Journal of Physics, Tonya S. Coffey, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Appalachian State University, in Boone, N.C., and her team of fearless physics students reported on the ingredients, temperature dependence, duration, and other parameters of the suddenly famous Mentos-Diet Coke reaction.
There has been considerable debate over gum arabic (found in the coating of the mint) and the role it plays in the physical reaction. Coffey’s group was able to confirm that the surfactant gum arabic is a key component of the reaction: It reduces surface tension, thereby
If you attended the annual NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) conference last week in Dallas, Texas, it wasn’t hard to find the Steve Spangler Science booth. All you had to do was listen for the shouts of surprise as we launched over 600 Mentos Geysers with the Geyser Tube™ in our own take on the classic dunk tank… 
