Flying Ghosts Science Experiment

Flying Ghosts Science Experiment with Baking Soda and Vinegar is a cool Halloween STEAM activity for kids! This easy to create science activity is the perfect way to keep your kids busy learning this Fall!

Science for Kids

One of the great things about this activity is that its safe for toddlers and preschoolers but exciting enough to entertain older grade school age kids as well! The main ingredients for this chemical reaction are baking soda and vinegar, common kitchen household items that is easily available at the grocery store.

Easy Fizzy Baking Soda and Vinegar Experiments

Do you want to try more experiments with baking soda. You can also try our other fizzy experiments like our

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Science Behind the Flying Ghosts Science Experiment

What happens when you combine baking soda with vinegar? Fizz! But why does this happen with two seemingly common ingredients. Baking soda is a base and vinegar is an acid. When an acid and a base mix they produce a gas called carbon dioxide.

But how are the ghosts flying? First off they aren’t flying, they are floating. By adding baking soda and vinegar to water, the liquid starts fill with lots of tiny bubbles. These bubbles start to rise to the surface and pop.

When you add an object to the water, like the lima beans, the bubbles cling to the surface of the objects causing them to rise to the surface along with the bubbles. The bubbles increase the buoyancy of the lima bean ghosts causing them to rise and appear as if they are flying up.

As the bubbles reach the surface of the water, they pop and the beans that were made buoyant loose their buoyancy and become more dense again. As the lima beans become more dense, they drop back to the bottom. While falling down and sitting on the bottom of the glass jar, the beans collect more bubbles. Once the beans have enough bubbles they will rise and fly again after a few minutes.

After a while, either the baking soda and vinegar reaction will get used up and stop making bubbles and the lima beans will remain on the bottom of the jar.

Supplies 

• Mason jar
• Warm Water
• 3-5 Lima Beans
• Black sharpie
• 1/3 cup of Baking soda
• Vinegar

How Many Ghosts to Make and Add to the Experiment

When I did this experiment we got really excited,I made several little ghosts but you will honestly only need between 3-5 lima beans ghosts. We also added all our lima bean ghost at once. I recommend adding about three at first and then adding more later on.

How to Make the Flying Ghosts Science Experiment

1. Using a black sharpie, draw ghost faces on lima beans.

3. Fill a jar half way with slightly warm water. Mix in about 1/3 cup of baking soda. Mix the baking soda until its has fully dissolved.

4. Add 3 lima bean ghosts to the jar.
5. Slowly fill the rest of the jar with vinegar. Bubbles will start to form and collect on the beans. As they do the beans will become more buoyant and start to rise or fly to the top of the jar.

5. As the bubbles pop they lima bean ghost will start to fall back down.

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