Halloween is the perfect time to celebrate the mad scientist in all of us. Try this fun erupting mad scientist potion in your Halloween mad scientist lab. It is so easy, and safe for kids!
Halloween is the perfect time to renew a child’s interest in science.
There are so many spooky, sciency things that are based around Halloween, and kids love trying out Halloween STEM activities and science ideas.
My kids are no exception. They kept repeating this experiment over and over again until we ran out of vinegar.
Don’t miss the complete list of Halloween science experiments!
Make your own crazy scientist’s lab with just three ingredients!
What You Need for Your Halloween Mad Scientist Lab
Before setting up your lab, you’ll need a few things to set the mood and make things a bit *crazy!*
- Safety goggles (safety is important even with this simple project!)
- Baking soda
- Liquid dish soap
- Food coloring
- Science beakers (we used this set)
- Vinegar
How to Set Up a Mad Science Lab
Fill your beakers about 1/3 of the way with vinegar. Add food coloring (we did red, blue, and green).
Squirt a few drops of dish soap into each bottle.
Take the beakers to a place that you don’t mind getting messy. We did our experiment outside.
Mad Scientist Lab Science
The reason this science experiment explodes is because of science (of course!).
Baking soda is a base, while vinegar is an acid.
When these two ingredient mix, a chemical reaction occurs where the molecules bind and turn into sodium acetate.
As a result of this chemical change, carbon dioxide gas is released as a byproduct.
Since the gas is lighter than air, it floats out of the flasks, and brings a bit of the bubble solution along with it, making a fun foam!
Since this reaction uses energy, rather than creates it, it is completely safe for kids to touch and play in!
Although we still recommend wearing gloves and goggles, just in case!
Conducting the mad scientist laboratory experiment
Wear safety goggles.
Scoop about a tablespoon of baking soda into each beaker. The more baking soda you add, the more the potions will erupt.
Because the dish soap is present, the eruption is slower and you get a cooler (we thought, anyway) reaction.
The suds billow out of the potion bottles slowly, rather than bubbling up like boiling water and finishing in a few seconds.
Our dish soap eruptions lasted about two minutes.
By adding more baking soda, we got our potions to erupt one last time. For further reactions, we had to add more vinegar.
The kids loved this, especially Bo. I thought it was pretty how the suds swirled and created a marble-like effect in the basin of our container.
More Mad Science Activities for Kids
Kids will love these other mad science ideas!
Brain Surgery Leak Proof Bag Experiment
Glowing, Creepy Oobleck Experiment
We also have Halloween STEM activities for kindergarten, Halloween STEM for first grade, Halloween STEM for 2nd grade, Halloween STEM for 3rd grade, Halloween STEM for 4th grade, Halloween STEM ideas for 5th grade, and middle school Halloween STEM activities!
Find more amazing Halloween STEAM activities in the Spooky Science Halloween book!
