Skip to main content

Learning about acids and bases

The first time we tried to make this video I did not have the colour standards in the backgroud. Matthew really didn't get the concept. After discussion with a more experienced science educator (my wife) I change the way we ran the experiment and used the colour standards. They definately helped get the point across.

Testing soda water really was a spur of the moment idea and definately got us thinking about where it fitted into our colour scale - make sure you watch to the end to see this.


If you would like to see our first attempt - here it is. Sorry about the lower quality.
It is really interesting to see how much more Matthew was able to understand through using the colour standards.
In our first take when I asked him why things were happening he kept coming back to “they are made of chemicals”.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dry ice and pH

I have to admit that the colour change was not a pronounced as I was hoping for with carbon dioxide dissolving to form carbonic acid. In the past I have used other pH indicators which give a much bigger colour change. This is due to the relative high pKa of carbonic acid ~ 6 in contrast to acetic acid in vinegar (pKa ~ 4). I’m keen to repeat this using a different indicator and possibly just blowing into a solution using exhaled carbon dioxide to change the pH. This is a very important demonstration as it simply shows the effect that our carbon dioxide emissions have on the pH of the ocean. Acidification of the oceans is a topic that has not really been raised in the climate change debate but a very serious problem that is looming...