The Science Behind Elephant Toothpaste

Get your kids excited about science with an experiment called Elephant Toothpaste, which looks a lot like what it sounds like.

The simplicity of this amazing experiment will give you and your kids something to talk about and enjoy when you’re dealing with a dreary day, want to show off a cool party trick, or you’re looking for a great way to get your kids excited about what they can learn and do with science. Elephant Toothpaste only takes a few small items that you might have lying around the house, which makes it the perfect activity for you and your kids.

The Reaction is Amazing

If you want to make a giant foamy reaction that looks like it’s being squeezed from a tube in quantities enough to brush the teeth of elephants, you’ll love this experiment. This activity includes chemistry, biology, reaction, catalyst, and surface tension. If your kids are looking for a great science fair exhibit to make or want to learn a little more about science, this is a wonderful experiment to get them started. Everyone can have a lot of fun and enjoy the incredible display of foam that comes out of the tube.

The Science Part

You likely know that hydrogen peroxide can clean cuts and scrapes by killing bacteria. This antiseptic is one of the go-to first aid items that your parents probably used and that you use every day. Do you know what hydrogen peroxide is? This liquid is made of an equal number of hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

The chemical formula for hydrogen peroxide is H2O2, and it’s often sold in low concentrations to be used for cleaning and killing germs. Higher concentrations are offered, but they are more dangerous and won’t be something you find on the store shelves, which typically contain a three percent concentration.

Moving to the Science of Elephant Toothpaste

Why does hydrogen peroxide come in dark brown bottles? The reason for this is that this chemical breaks down when exposed to light. When this happens, the substance breaks down to form oxygen and water. By only being exposed to light, this process of breaking down happens slowly, in an almost unnoticeable manner. You can increase the speed of this change by adding a catalyst to the experiment.

This is where the fun begins.The catalyst you’ll want to use for Elephant Toothpaste is yeast. What makes yeast the right choice as the catalyst for this experiment? Yeast is an organism that contains catalase, which acts as a catalyst to increase the speed at which the hydrogen peroxide breaks down.

Catalase is an interesting item, and where you find the biology of our experiment. Catalase is present in nearly all living things that are exposed to oxygen, and it’s used to help break down naturally occurring hydrogen peroxide in our systems.

What’s Going to Happen?

Before you put the items together, you might want to present questions to your audience, hopefully, your children, and ask them to guess what will happen when everything is put together. Remind them this experiment is called the science of Elephant Toothpaste and see if they can help to explain what will happen and how quickly.

Once you get past the guessing phase, it’s time for action. When you mix yeast with hydrogen peroxide, the hydrogen peroxide will rapidly break down into water and oxygen gas. The oxygen gas forms bubbles and normally will escape undetected. What you need is one more ingredient to add the science of surface tension to the mix. The right item is dish soap. This soap allows the bubbles to be trapped and creates lots of foam.

This foam appears as a large squeeze of toothpaste that might happen when small hands are having trouble getting the paste to come up and out of the tube.

What do You Need to Complete the Experiment?

When you want to instruct people about the science of Elephant Toothpaste, or you just want to show your friends a cool party trick, you’ll need a few items. Here are the materials you’ll need:

• Empty plastic bottle
• Dry yeast
• Warm water
• Liquid dish soap
• 3% hydrogen peroxide
• Measuring cups
• Measuring spoons
• Safety glasses
• Large tub or tray
• A location where you can make a mess
• Liquid food coloring
• Additional bottles and glasses of various shapes

Put your safety glasses on and ask others to do the same if they are in the area where the foam is going to go. Hydrogen peroxide can irritate your eyes, and that could ruin the fun.

Measure a half-cup of hydrogen peroxide and pour it into the bottle. Add a large squirt of dish soap and gently swirl the mixture together.

Add a few drops of food coloring to make colored foam. If you want to get creative with the color, put a few different colored drops of color along the inside rim of the mouth of the bottle.

In a measuring cup, mix one tablespoon of yeast and three tablespoons of warm water. Stir this mixture for about thirty seconds. Hint: This is the perfect time to ask your audience to guess what they think will happen when all ingredients are mixed together.

Finally, pour the yeast and water mixture into the bottle and step back. Watch what happens.

Add More Questions, Observations, and Fun to the Mix

To add more answers and expand the learning of your audience, try and perform the Elephant Toothpaste experiment without dish soap and see what happens. Try doing this with different shaped containers and see what the difference is in the results.

You’ve Got the Stuff for Science

You can add to the education of your kids or show off with your friends when you know a little science, and you perform the Elephant Toothpaste experiment. Everyone will love the amazing foamy mess you’ve made with your simple ingredients. Thankfully, cleanup is really easy, especially if you have planned for the mess that this experiment can make. Have fun and let everyone enjoy how cool science can be.