Carbon Dioxide Pouring

Today we decided to see if we could pour a gas: carbon dioxide, to be exact.  I thought that we would be able to.

Here's what we did: We took two sandwich-sized bags and taped them to the opposite ends of a ruler.  Then we balanced the ruler on another one so the bags were on the ends of ruler number one. ;}

  












We measured out three teaspoons of baking soda and about a half cup of vinegar.

Liam poured the vinegar into the pitcher with the baking soda and it bubbled up!

Then I poured the gas that the mixture had made into one of the bags.  The first time, Juliet did it and it fell on the floor because she accidentally poured a bit of the liquid into the bag.  The second time, I did it and poured so much gas in that the bags fell off the balance.  The third time, I did it again but it only tilted a little bit and it didn't fall off again.

  

Want to know why the bag tilted?  When I poured from the pitcher, the carbon dioxide weighed the bag down on that side of the scale.  There was air in the other bag.  So we know carbon dioxide is heavier than air.  So even though it looked like I was pouring nothing, the scale told us I was....