Just when you think that everyone in the world has seen the Mentos Geyser experiment, you run into a few thousand people attending the New York Toy Fair who are surprised by the reaction. Last Monday I spent the entire day launching off soda geysers in the Be Amazing Toys booth at the Toy Fair. Over forty of my science toys and educational kits are licensed to Be Amazing Toys who distributes them to retailers internationally. The Geyser Tube demonstration drew some great crowds at Toy Fair thanks in part to the thirty foot tall geyser chamber that occupied the corner of the booth. The most common question I got the entire day was, “Could you do that again for my friend?” And, of course, I just had to do it again.. and again… and again. In total, we launched off about 400 two-liter bottles of diet soda (diet isn’t sticky and really blasts off well) using the Mentos Geyser Tube toy.
A photographer from the Associated Press camped out in the booth for part of the morning as well as a handful of bloggers who wanted to
It was easy to spot Doc Gizmo as you wandered through the exhibit hall at the Colorado Science Convention. He was the only person dressed in a tie-dyed lab coat with multi-colored socks and a smile that beamed from ear to ear. Even before watching his program, there was no question that this guy had found his calling.
Doc Gizmo, whose real name is Phil Arnold, has been traveling around the Midwest for several years doing his science assembly program for a wide variety of audiences. Phil told the audience that his wife teaches chemistry and physics in Bucklin, Kansas, and he was recruited to build a few science demonstrations for her to use in the classroom. One thing led to the next and Doc Gizmo is traveling the Midwest with his science show speaking to anyone and everyone who wants to learn why science is fun.
During the hour long program for an audience of science teachers at the Colorado Science Convention, Doc Gizmo skillfully weaved a handful of classic
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?”…
We just wrapped up our first ever MOSAIC science workshop for teachers… and we had a blast. Here’s the idea behind MOSAIC – amazing teachers from diverse backgrounds coming together to share best practices and to learn how to the tools in their classrooms to create unforgettable learning experiences. All of this year’s participants received a special invitation from our workshop team because they had previously attended our week-long Hands-on Science Institute from Regis University or, more recently, they attended a three-day workshop called Science in the Rockies. I as said, this was the first time we ever offered a small-scale, very one-on-one training of this caliber. Judging from response… I think we’ll do it again in 2010.
Just when you think that everyone in the world has seen the Mentos Geyser experiment, you run into a few thousand people attending the New York Toy Fair who are surprised by the reaction. Last Monday I spent the entire day launching off soda geysers in the Be Amazing Toys booth at the Toy Fair. Over forty of my science toys and educational kits are licensed to Be Amazing Toys who distributes them to retailers internationally. The Geyser Tube demonstration drew some great crowds at Toy Fair thanks in part to the thirty foot tall geyser chamber that occupied the corner of the booth. The most common question I got the entire day was, “Could you do that again for my friend?” And, of course, I just had to do it again.. and again… and again. In total, we launched off about 400 two-liter bottles of diet soda (diet isn’t sticky and really blasts off well) using the Mentos Geyser Tube toy.
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… 
