Science News Articles: Dancing Corn Thanksgiving Science Activity Fall Experiment

Dancing Corn Thanksgiving Science Activity Fall Experiment

Dancing Corn Thanksgiving Science Activity for Fall

The perfect kitchen science experiment when you are already in the kitchen! Check out your pantry, I bet you have everything thing you need to put together a dancing corn science activity. We have tons more science activities here to try. Also click on the picture below or the link for more Thanksgiving themed science and STEM activities.

LET’S TRY OUT SOME MAGIC DANCING CORN SCIENCE!

SUPPLIES

A tall jar or glass
Popping corn
Baking soda
Vinegar
Water
Spoon

SET UP

If your child is anything like mine, I would put a dish underneath your jar! As you can see in one of the photos below, we had a dancing corn eruption. Fizzy science is our favorite science. Just check out our pumpkin volcano!

Pumpkin Volcano Science Activity for Fall STEM

STEP 1

To get started, fill your jar with 2 cups of water. Then you want to add a couple tablespoons of baking soda to the water.

Dancing Corn Science Pouring Baking Soda

Stir to dissolve the baking soda as much as possible. Talk about what dissolves and what doesn’t. This could lead to a fun side activity testing different solids to see if they dissolve in water.

STEP 3

Add corn kernels to the water and baking soda. Do the corn kernels sink or float. Ask questions along the way!

STEP 4

Now here comes the fun part of our dancing corn science activity. I would suggest adding the vinegar slowly. I filled a small party cup with vinegar. My son doesn’t do anything slowly, but he loves a good eruption!

Dancing Corn Thanksgiving Science Baking Soda Eruption

Dancing corn is simple science that’s pretty cool to try!

Before you talk about what’s happening with the dancing corn, ask a few questions to get your kids talking about what they see happening. The secret to the magic dancing corn is the baking soda and vinegar chemical reaction. The gas produced when the two mix produces carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide bubbles left the corn, but then it falls back down!

You can stir it if you like or you can just observe it as it is! The dancing corn lasted for a good half hour but slowed down along the way as the chemical reaction faded away.

Dancing Corn Thanksgiving Science observing dancing corn

We did explore adding a spoonful of baking soda to the mix and had another little eruption and of course more dancing corn! I have seen people comment that saying it’s magic isn’t science, but I believe simple science activities for kids can be a bit magical and encourage a further love of learning!