Elephant toothpaste has nothing to do with elephants. It is a chemical reaction that makes so much foam that we can imagine an elephant could brush its teeth with it.
You use hydrogen peroxide, yeast, soap, food coloring and a little warm water. Yeast mixes with the hydrogen peroxide, and when soap is added to the reaction it makes bubbles and a ton of foam. (Soap has nothing to do with the reaction.) Adding food coloring makes your elephant toothpaste look really cool. Yeast is the catalyst (it kicks off the chemical reaction) and it breaks apart bonds in hydrogen peroxide, releasing oxygen which is captured by the soap and creates foam.
Click here for our elephant toothpaste video:
Or here:
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Oh, my, this is outstanding! I loved that you grabbed something that caught your interest and followed up on it on Wonder Day like that. That’s what I love to do too. I collect interesting things, and then in the summer is my curiosity time to explore them further. The world is so full of wondrous things!
Did your experiment bring up any questions in your mind? Do you think you could make one even bigger? How would you try that?
Marvelous job! I hope you enjoyed Wonder Day!
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That is really cool.
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That’s really cool, I’ve always wanted to do it.