Background: While baking soda and vinegar may not seem very fascinating, when combined, they can create a reaction that will keep you up for hours past your bed time. When you mix vinegar with baking soda, a chemical change takes place and the result of this reaction is the forming of carbon dioxide. Where does the birthday candle come in? Some of you may know that carbon dioxide does not support burning. When you hold the carbon dioxide mixture (while it is still "fresh" and bubbling) like you are about to pour it near the lit birthday candle, the flame goes out. Although this seems fun, you have to be careful and make sure that you do not actually pour or drop any of the carbon dioxide mixture onto the flame. It seems pretty simple but it takes a few tries to get it right.Three Interesting Facts: One fact that I found very interesting is that carbon dioxide does not support burning. I found this interesting because fires need oxygen to survive. Carbon dioxide has two parts of oxygen. Therefore, I found it fascinating that carbon dioxide does not support burning. Another this that I found fascinating was the fact that you were not supposed to pour the carbon dioxide on the flame. I always assumed when you wanted to out out a fire, you poured whatever substance that would put it out onto the fire. I guess that I was wrong. Lastly, it is interesting that creating a chemical change is so simple. The term "chemical change" make me think of some long, hard process that involves lots of substances, professionals, and that it is very dangerous. I never realized that something as simple as burning a candle or mixing baking soda with vinegar was actually a chemical change. I guess you learn something new everyday.
Two Other Facts: Did you know that the wax from the candle vaporizes after it melts? It's true! Apparntly, it produces vater vapor and carbon dioxide. That's pretty cool because most people think that the wax just melts, considering some of it gets onto your cake. However, I guess you don't have to pick all of it apart from your icing because to your eyes, the rest dissappears. Though in reality, it does not dissappear, it just changes forms. Also, can you imagine edible birthday candles? Well, they are out there. Some birthday candles are made with soybean oil and are therefore edible. This was news to me because I thought that all birthday candles were edible. Oops!
Opinion: I thought that doing this in class was very exciting. In school, not many things you do are as interesting as this was. I loved doing this lab because we got to do thing that you can not usually do on schoool property! I hope that we do more labs like this because it changes the way we learn science and that is good because not all people learn the same way. I know that I personally learn better when we discuss something in calss or do hands on activities compared to when we just read from a book. Doing fun labs is a really good idea and I hope that we are able to continue doing them!
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