Did You Know That Your Leftover Spaghetti Can Dance?

If you try hard enough, you can teach it the Cat Daddy!

I learned the adhesion properties of spaghetti at a young age, as my little brother and I flung spaghetti onto the stucco ceilings of our home. Really, nobody noticed. Seriously, how often do you stare at the ceiling? Sorry when it finally fell on you, Mom.

Fill a glass with water, and dissolve baking soda in it, little by little, until there is excess on the bottom of the glass. This is called a saturated solution. Break uncooked angel hair pasta into 2-3 inch pieces, and place it in the glass. Breaking is a physical change.  Be a drama queen (or king); add a few drops of that food coloring that has laid on the bottom shelf since last Christmas. You’ve now created a homogeneous saturated solution of water, baking soda, and color.

Now for the not so hard part; pour some vinegar in the glass. Observe what happened. Did your pasta do the Macarena?

Baking Soda (aka sodium bicarbonate) and vinegar (aka acetic acid) chemically react. This means the atoms break bonds, undergo a chemical change, and reform into new types of matter. Sounds kind of like harsh breakup, poor little atoms.

The bubbles that form contain Carbon dioxide, the same stuff we breathe out. The reaction between the chemicals is:

NaHCO₃ (aq) +     HC₂H₃O₂ (aq) ------> CO₂ (g) + H₂O (l) +    NaC₂H₃O₂ (aq)

Baking soda         Vinegar                  Carbon Dioxide          Sodium acetate

What About My Noodle?

When the carbon dioxide bubbles attach to the noodles, the noodles float, since the bubbles are less dense than water. When the bubbles pop, the dense noodles settle back down. Imagine you were a giant noodle in the bottom of a swimming pool – what would happen to you if someone swam you down some water wings? 


Key Words:
chemical reaction
density
physical change
chemical change 
saturated solution 

Assessment Ideas:
Knowledge: Define a chemical reaction.
Comprehension: Summarize what happens during a chemical reaction.
Application: Would a reaction happen without vinegar? Explain.
Analysis:What would happen if less baking soda or vinegar were used? Would the reaction still happen?
Synthesis: Design an experiment with baking soda, vinegar,water, and an object of your choice.
Evaluation: Why did the spaghetti dance?