July 8, 2008

Mentos Geyser Explodes on Photography Blog

In our continuing quest to find interesting blogs and bloggers, we ran into Leah Simmers Photography Blog, where she was capturing her experience with Mentos and Diet Coke. Thanks to Leah for letting us share some her unique geyser pictures here. Check out Leah's full blog post here. And yes, that is the Geyser Tube she's using to launch that screaming geyser.

June 20, 2008

Kentucky Students Set New MENTOS Geyser Record

Not to be out-done by Europeans, students at Male High School in Louisville, KY, set off 300 more geysers than the previous record-breaking effort just a few months ago in Belgium. School officials thought exploding Diet Coke and MENTOS would be a great way for students to blow off a little steam before finals and celebrate a great school year. The students were recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the new official record holders with 1800 geysers. All proceeds from the event were donated to the Ronald McDonald House. Congrats to Male High School students... now who will be next in the race for a new geyser world record?

May 13, 2008

Not Your Typical Mentos Geyser Video

There are literally thousands of online videos featuring the Mentos Geyser experiment, but this video is worth a few minutes of your time. It's a first-class video produced by Mr. Delos Santos and his third grade class at Stone Ranch Elementary in San Diego, California. Mr. Santos says that the project first started out as just a science experiment for the unit on Matter, but quickly grew into a much bigger project. But it's not just a video, the class created their own "Fizz"ical Science website. "The largest challenge in producing a project like this is being able to engage all students in the digital learning process. Teaching them the proper technique and how to convey their message in a clear and systematic way was another challenging aspect of our project," according to Mr. Santos. Here's the best part... The video has been nominated for an iVIE (Innovative Video in Education) Award! The award ceremony will take place on May 20th, and we'll keep you posted. BUT... We held our own screening earlier today and our staff would like to present Mr. Delos Santos' third grade class with our own video … (more...)

November 17, 2006

Geysers Galore - 700 Learning Experiences at NAEYC

The Mentos Geyser made history once again as the star attraction at the NAEYC 2006 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Over the rumble of the crowd in the exhibit hall, you could hear someone from the Spangler Science booth yell, "GEYSER!" followed by a few screams and cheers of excitement. The "geyser" was actually the eruption of a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke powered by Mentos. As soon as people approached the booth and saw the mountain of soda and the display of Mentos, they knew what could happen... but most people didn't believe that we would actually launch the geysers from behind the booth. Surprise! Instead of just launching the Diet Coke just for fun sake, we used each opportunity to deliver a quick science lesson and followed it up by putting one of our Geyser Tube Experiments in each of the teacher's hands. Out of the 11,000 people reported to be in attendance at the event, we personally handed out 7,000 Geyser Tube Experiments (which included a roll of Mentos). We even had a few guest "geyserists" take center stage in the booth and try their hand at a launch. This is not the first time these educators had seen or performed our Mentos Geyser which was featured on stage three years ago in Anaheim, California at the 2003 NAEYC Conference. One teacher commented, "We've been doing this experiment for the past three years, and it took the rest of the world this long to catch up!" (more...)

November 15, 2006

Mentos and Soda Mix - An Erupting Business

In addition to being the Business Columnist for the Denver Post, Al Lewis is now a fan of the Mentos and soda mixture. Al called last week with questions about our recent license agreement with with Italian confectioner Perfetti Van Melle, the maker of Mentos. His column entitled Mentos-Soda Mix a Mint for Scientist looks at the business side of the popular Mentos Geyser. He asked lots of questions about things other than my work on the Mentos experiment. He wanted to know about my background, my teaching and my parents. "Let me get this straight," I said to Spangler. "Your father was a scientist and a magician. David Copperfield hung out at your house. You are now 39 years old. And getting a pop bottle to squirt 20 feet in the air is the best trick you know?" "This isn't the best trick," he said. "It's the trick that got the most notoriety." Al also wanted to learn how this science experiment turned into a viral marketing sensation with the Mentos video that aired on 9NEWS in September of 2005. Al asked me if teachers are really doing this experiment and how they're turning it into a learning … (more...)