Chai Brady
Children’s Corner
Although the summer months are coming to an end and school is on the horizon, it’s still not too late to make your own summery and refreshing sparkling lemonade.
There’s a lot that can be learned in the process of making this beverage, understanding the scientific process behind it is another added bonus while also quenching your thirst.
The ingredients are easy to come by and cheap and quick to source if you’re missing something. A bit of lemon here and a bit of baking soda there and before you know it you’ll be an expert at making your own fizzy drinks.
Apparatus:
- Lemon
- Glass cup
- Water
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- Some sugar to make it sweet
Method:
- Squeeze as much of the juice from the lemon as you can into the glass.
- Pour in an equal amount of water as lemon juice.
- Stir in the teaspoon of baking soda.
- Give the mixture a taste and add in some sugar if you think it needs to be sweeter, but try not to overdo it – many fizzy drinks are loaded with sugar thus giving them their bad name.
So, what actually happening? Why don’t we need a compressed canister of carbon dioxide to create the bubble affect?
The mixture you created become bubble and taste like fizzy lemonade, if some sugar is added it might even taste like a lemon flavoured fizzy drink easily found in most shops. The bubbles that form when you add the baking soda to the lemon mixture are carbon dioxide (CO2), these are the same bubbles you’ll find in shop-bought fizzy drinks and sparkling water.
Of course, they add a several other flavoured sweeteners and preservatives but it’s not much different to what you made. In fact, your creation is by far superior in terms of its simple ingredients and lack of unhealthy additives. If you are wondering how the carbon dioxide bubbles formed, it was because you created a chemical reaction when you added the lemon (an acid) to the baking soda (a base). Now all that’s left is to sample your creation!