activity 5: The Can Trick Can shaken? Can't wait? Try this! Ingredients: An unopened can of soda - the warmer the better. What to do: Shake, shake, shake your can of soda (or simply use a can that has fallen or has been shaken accidentally). Place the can on a tabletop and tap the sides of the soda can with your finger (or a utensil). Rotate the can as you tap. Five to ten raps on the side of the can should do it. Wait a few seconds. Point the mouth of your can away from your body, anyone else's body, and any thing that you don't want spritzed with soda. Open the can and see what happens. Option- try this with two cans of soda, side by side, both shaken but one tapped and one not. Food for Thought: When you opened the can, did the soda spray out of it? If you tapped the can it shouldn't have. However, if you didn't tap the can.....watch out! The soda probably spewed out! Carbonated drinks in a can are under pressure and contain a dissolved gas called carbon dioxide. At normal drinkable temperatures and atmospheric pressures this dissolved gas wants to leave the liquid. As it does, it makes tiny bubbles in your glass and when you drink the soda, these bubbles give you that tongue tingling sensation. You can just wait before opening your can or you can tap. Waiting awhile gives carbon dioxide bubbles time to re-dissolve into solution. Tapping however allows the bubbles to detach from the sidewalls and bottom of the can so they can float to the top (Step 3, where you waited a few seconds, is where you gave time for the bubbles to float upwards). There they meet the largest, but most benign bubble of the bunch - the one right under the lid.
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