Make a Carbon Sugar Snake
A spoonful of sugar and baking soda turns into a rising black carbon snake.
Materials you'll need
- pie tin
- sand
- small bowl
- measuring spoons
- baking soda
- powdered sugar
- whisk
- lighter fluid
- lighter
Step-by-step tutorial
Step 1: Fill a pie tin with sand.Step 2: Pile the sand into a mound in the middle of the tin. Press your knuckle into the top of the mound to make a small hole.
Step 3: In a small bowl, add 1 teaspoon baking soda and 4 teaspoons powdered sugar. Whisk until the two powders are fully mixed.
Step 4: Set the pie tin on a fireproof surface in a well-ventilated area, and keep water nearby. Have a grown-up pour lighter fluid over the sand mound and into the hole, then cap the bottle and set it far away. Never add more lighter fluid once the fire is lit.
Step 5: Spoon the sugar mixture into the hole at the center of the mound.
Step 6: Tie back long hair and stand back while a grown-up lights the sand next to the sugar pile. Watch the burnt sugar slowly rise into a black snake! Let the flames burn out and the snake cool completely before anyone touches it.
Learn more
Your sugar snake grows thanks to three heat-powered chemical reactions happening at once. Sugar that gets plenty of oxygen burns, turning into carbon dioxide gas and water vapor. Sugar buried deeper in the pile can't get enough oxygen, so the heat breaks it down into solid black carbon instead, the same stuff in charcoal. Meanwhile, the baking soda breaks down into sodium carbonate, which ends up in the snake too, plus even more carbon dioxide and water vapor. All those hot gases puff up the black carbon like foam and push it up and out of the sand, so your snake keeps growing.If you liked this project, Fire Lab takes combustion further with 7 experiments, including flame tests that turn fire different colors.