Dry Ice FUN!

We just returned from a couple of days of family camp with our church. Today we spent the time cleaning and unpacking. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a delivery of our favorite ice cream, Working Cow this afternoon. We all look forward to the arrival of ice cream for many reasons. First, it's ICE CREAM!! Second, it comes packed in a nice cooler that hubby loves to use for his fishing trips. Third (and most exciting), is that it is kept cold in the cooler with dry ice.

The last time we received a shipment, we just talked about dry ice and it's make up with basic experiments of its reaction in water. This time we were prepared to step it up a notch by doing a little research on the Internet.

We took our usual precautions: I got my gloves and tongs and G is not allowed to touch the ice.

Our first experiment was bubbles.
We took warm water and placed a drop of dish detergent and food coloring in a container. Then added the dry ice. The results were impressive. Instead of the gassy cloud like with the water. Bubbles flowed over the side and when they were touched, they broke open allowing the carbon dioxide to escape.

Our next experiment was to blow a balloon up using dry ice. We took a water bottle and put dry ice pellets in it. Then we attached a balloon on the neck of the bottle and shook it until it inflated. Once it was inflated. We blew up another balloon with our mouth. Then we compared the weight of the balloons and the dry ice balloon was heavier. We also dropped them at the same time and the dry ice balloon fell faster.

The next experiment was to put an inch of water in a bowl and drop a piece of dry ice in the bowl. The smoking started. We then blew bubbles from our bubble wand onto the mixture. What you see are bubbles that appear to float on the cloud.

At the start of our experiments, we put a piece of regular ice in a bowl and a piece of dry ice in a bowl. We watched from time to time and after an hour, we saw that the ice cube had melted to water and the dry ice just disappeared or dissipated (the word we learned today).

Now we have had our science lesson complete with experiments, vocabulary and explanations of carbon dioxide vs oxygen and water. 

It's now time for ice cream!!!