(Intro)

Today is going to be fun! Do you know why? Because we're going to do an experiment together! This experiment is going to make this balloon blow up, but we're not going to be blowing into it. Instead, we're going to blow it up using two things that you probably have in your kitchen, baking soda and vinegar. I know it might sound strange, but these two ingredients can make this balloon blow up on its own because of a chemical reaction.

A chemical reaction is when two different things mix together and create a change. For example, when you bake cookies, you're creating a chemical reaction. Or after you eat food and burp that's because of a chemical reaction. Every chemical reaction begins with reactants. Those are the things that you mix together, and after they mix, the stuff that's left over is known as the product. So, when you're baking cookies, all of the ingredients that you mix together are your reactants, and once you've mixed them all together you've made one product, the cookie dough.

And, what's really cool, is that in some chemical reactions both the reactants and the products can end up looking and feeling totally different from each other. For example, in our experiment, we'll be mixing baking soda, which is a solid, and vinegar, which is a liquid. But when we put them together, they'll combine to make a whole new kind of substance, a gas.

Here's what you'll need for the experiment: a balloon, a plastic bottle, a tablespoon to help us measure our reactants with, and, to help us fill our balloon and water bottle, we're going to use a funnel. And, of course, our baking soda and vinegar. And remember, make sure that you're doing your experiment in a place where it's OK to make a mess.

Alright, first I'm going to put the funnel inside my balloon. Then, I'm going to fill the balloon with three tablespoons of baking soda. Now that we've measured our baking soda, I'm gonna wipe off my funnel and tablespoon. OK, once we've cleaned our tools, lets place the funnel inside the bottle, and add three tablespoons of vinegar.

OK, for this next step we need to be very careful so we don't spill what's in the balloon into the bottle. Not just yet! Now, let's take our balloon, and, making sure that the baking soda stays inside it, put the end of the balloon around the opening of the bottle. If you need an extra pair of hands to hold the bottle, feel free to ask a friend or a grownup to help you.

This looks perfect! We're just about ready for our balloon to fill up. On the count of three, let's pull the balloon up and let the baking soda spill down. OK, are you ready? One. Two. Three!

*squeaking* Look at it go guys! So, what's happening here? Our two reactants mixed together to make a new product. The baking soda, a solid, mixed with the vinegar, a liquid, and they created a couple of different products: a liquid and a gas! We can see the liquid at the bottom of the bottle here, but where did the gas go? That's right! Into the balloon. The gas that this chemical reaction produced is what made the balloon blow up.

Pretty cool, huh? So, what do you think would happen if we used more vinegar or more baking soda? Would the balloon grow bigger? Would that change how much liquid is at the bottom of your bottle? Keep experimenting and testing your results, and let us know what you've discover!

Thank you for joining Squeaks and me, and doing our experiment with us today, and I've also like to give a big thank you to Google Making Science for helping us make this episode. Do you have an experiment that you'd like to share or do you have a question about anything at all? We'd love to hear from you. Grab a grownup and leave a comment down below, or send us an email to kids@thescishow.com, and we'll see you next time here at the fort.