Teacher’s notes
FILM CANISTER
POPPERS
CARBON
DIOXIDE
EXPLOSIONS
E
THIS EXPERIMENT USES DRY ICE
which is frozen carbon dioxide. The interesting thing about dry ice is that it changes from a solid directly into
a gas. On Earth there is no liquid state. Which is why it is “dry” ice. Because the ice quickly turns into a gas it is hard to capture - which is why it makes closed film canisters unexpectedly pop!
EQUIPMENT
What’s happening?
•
Metal tongs to handle dry ice
•
Warm water
•
Empty 35mm film canisters - those
•
Dry ice
with the
snap on lid work
best 5:20 PM • Page
Safety
Curtin Brand
Guidelines
4/1/05
4 glasses
•
Cold water
•
Stopwatch
METHOD
1. Using the metal tongs, add a pellet of dry ice to the film canister.
Curtin Style Guide
2. Press the lid on firmly, stand back and time how long it takes to explode.
The dry ice turns into a
gas. And the gas takes up
more space than the solid.
As time goes on the
pressure builds until the
cap of the canister can no
longer hold the gas in and
it gives.
3. Place a small amount of cold water into the canister and repeat step 2.
4. Now do same - but use warm water.
Students should find that
the warm water works the
fastest. This is because
5. What do you notice about the time it takes to pop? Does air, cold water or
the energy supplied by the
warm
water
make
the
canister
pop
the
fastest?
Why
do
you
think
this
is?
warm
up the
It will not always be possible to use the full-colour mark. On those occasions select one of the
colourwater
variants speeds
as
reaction
rate.
shown below. Two variants of the master logo have been developed to satisfy those instances
when the full-
2. Master logo – Colour variants
colour version cannot be reproduced clearly. No other combinations should be used. In all forms of literature the
logotypenote:
is to be positioned in the bottom right hand corner of the cover design.
Please
Take care as they can explode with quite a great deal of force.
Make sure that the students are well back and warned not to pick
up any ice that may come out. They should also all be wearing
Positive glasses.
variants
safety
The Curtin master logo has 2 positive variants:
3 colour master logo and the mono version.
No other colour combinations should be used.
Science Outreach - [email protected]