Science can be super cool to try and super easy to set up at the same time. Let’s show kids how fun science can be! This Valentine’s Day hydrogen peroxide and yeast experiment is a must try experiment for a real WOW! We have loads of simple Valentine’s Day science experiments you can easily do at home or in the classroom.

Explore Chemical Reactions For Valentine’s Day

We, of course, love the holidays here, so it’s fun to give a classic chemistry experiments a Valentine’s Day theme!

Pink and red and hearts are added to most of our Valentine’s Day science activities and this Valentine’s Day hydrogen peroxide and yeast experiment has plenty of pink and red! Food coloring is a super simple way to give science a holiday theme. My son is also very generous with his food coloring use.

The reaction between the hydrogen peroxide and the yeast makes for an awesome foam that is perfectly safe for little hands to play with and a breeze to clean up. However, this science experiment is not edible! We love fun chemical reaction experiments!

Check out the awesome photos below and at the end, you will see everything you need to set up your own hydrogen peroxide and yeast experiment or Elephant Toothpaste for Valentine’s Day.

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What Is Chemistry?

Let’s keep it basic for our younger or junior scientists! Chemistry is all about the way different materials are put together, and how they are made up including atoms and molecules. It’s also how these materials act under different conditions. Chemistry is often a base for physics so you will see overlap!

What might you experiment with in chemistry? Classically we think of a mad scientist and lots of bubbling beakers, and yes there is a reaction between bases and acids to enjoy! Also, chemistry involves matter, changes, solutions, and the list goes on and on.

We will be exploring simple chemistry you can do at home or in the classroom that isn’t too crazy, but is still lots of fun for kids! You can check out some more chemistry activities here. Check out the video! You can never recreate the same look twice.

Helpful Science Resources To Get You Started

Here are a few resources that will help you introduce science more effectively to your kiddos or students and feel confident yourself when presenting materials. You’ll find helpful free printables throughout.

Why Is It Called Elephant’s Toothpaste?

This classic chemistry experiment is often called Elephant’s toothpaste because of the voluminous amount of foam that it produces. However, you do need a much stronger percentage of hydrogen peroxide to produce that reaction than what we use below.

Check out our elephant toothpaste experiment with stronger peroxide!

You can still enjoy the same type of chemistry experiment but with less foam and less of an exothermic reaction with regular household hydrogen peroxide. The experiment is still awesome, and if you get a chance to try a higher percentage of peroxide, it will be worth it too!

Why Does Hydrogen Peroxide Foam?

The reaction between hydrogen peroxide and yeast is called an exothermic reaction. You will feel a warmth to the outside of the container because energy is being released in the form of heat.

The yeast helps to remove the oxygen from the hydrogen peroxide creating tons of tiny bubbles that made all that cool foam. The foam is the oxygen, water, and dish soap that you added.

Hydrogen peroxide is a relatively unstable compound, and it naturally breaks down into water and oxygen over time. However, this process is slow. In the experiment, yeast acts as a catalyst, speeding up that reaction.

Yeast contains catalase, an enzyme that helps breakdown hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen. The yeast increases the rate at which hydrogen peroxide decomposes.

As the hydrogen peroxide decomposes, it produces oxygen gas. The oxygen gas forms bubbles, and these bubbles create foam as they rise to the surface of the liquid. The foam or bubbling you can see, is evidence of the release of oxygen.

If you pay close attention, the reaction continues for quite a while and looks quite different depending on the size of the container you use! We chose three different size flasks to check out this Valentines Day hydrogen peroxide and yeast exothermic reaction. Each one looked pretty cool.

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Valentine’s Day Hydrogen Peroxide and Yeast Experiment

Supplies:

  • Hydrogen Peroxide
  • Warm Water
  • Yeast Packets {we used two packets for the three beakers}
  • Flasks or Plastic Bottles
  • Teaspoon and Tablespoon
  • Food Coloring
  • Dish Soap
  • Tray or Container {to place bottles or beakers on to catch foam}
  • Small Cup {mixing yeast and water}

Set Up:

STEP 1: Pour the same amount of hydrogen peroxide into each container unless you are just using one container. We used a 1/2 cup.

STEP 2. Then squirt dish soap into flask or bottle and swish it around a bit to mix!

STEP 3. Next add food coloring (as much as you like, my son is very generous).

STEP 4: Make the yeast mixture by mixing 1 tablespoon of yeast with 3 tablespoons of very warm water. Stir to dissolve the yeast as best as possible. It may appear clumpy still but that’s fine!

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STEP 5: Pour the yeast mixture into the container and check out what happens! You can even add a few more drops of food coloring as the mixture swells out of the container.

Notice how quickly the reaction begins. The foam had started before he was even finished pouring in the rest of the mixture.

For the larger flask, the reaction continued for quite a while inside the container before it came out of the top. Would a different amount of hydrogen and yeast change that?

BELOW IS THE MEDIUM SIZED FLASK SHOWING THE CHEMICAL REACTION FROM START TO FINISH

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Check out all that cool foam being produced by the reaction between the hydrogen peroxide and the yeast!

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Go ahead and play around with the foam. My son added additional red food coloring. This will temporarily stain the hands if you use as much as my son! If we stayed with the pink foam this would not have happened.

You can also go ahead and whip up new yeast mixtures and add it with extra hydrogen peroxide to the already foamy bottles or flasks. We always do this with our baking soda and vinegar reactions!

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Hydrogen Peroxide and Yeast

More Fun Valentine’s Day Science Experiments

You can find all our Valentine’s Day science experiments here, including…

Printable Valentine STEM Project Pack

Countdown to Valentine’s Day with science and STEM! Pack includes complete instructions, templates, and images for 20+ activities. Bonus: printable science Valentine’s Day cards!

 

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