Diet Cola Volcano Activity for Kids

Have you ever made a homemade volcano with your kids? We’ve all made those science projects that include vinegar and baking soda, but this one is a fun concept that uses diet cola and Mentos candies to create the explosion.

There is no better way to teach your kids about science while having fun than to make a homemade volcano. It is almost a right of passage for kids to do this project, but using this method is something I hadn’t thought of until recently. I know the fun videos my kids have watched using a diet cola and Mentos candy have them laughing, so I figured it would be ideal to try out for this project. This Diet Cola Volcano Activity for kids is a lot of fun and sure to spark any child’s curiosity with the messy eruption it creates!

Diet Cola Volcano Activity Tutorial

Note: If making this homemade volcano, remember that the effect with the cola and Mentos reaction only works once. You cannot reuse the cola or candy to do this a second time. So, once it erupts once, you’ll have to replace the bottle with new cola and new candy to make it erupt a second time.

Supplies:

8-10 plastic shopping bags
1-2 brown paper shopping bags
masking tape
mint mentos (We used one package per volcano.)
diet cola (we used a 1L bottle)
scrap paper

Directions:

1. Wrap about 3-4 plastic shopping bags around the top of a bottle of diet coke. Secure loosely with masking tape.

2. Continue to wrap another 4-6 bags around the bottom of your bottle. Secure loosely with masking tape.

3. Open your brown paper bag at the seams. Rip the bag into smaller, more manageable sections. Tape the sections together as you create a semi-circle. Fold the tops and bottom flaps up as shown.

4. Tuck the brown bag around the bottle covered with plastic bags. Simply tuck it under the bottom of the bags and down into the top so the opening of the bottle is not covered.

5. Wrap a piece of scrap paper around the Mentos and tape. Remove this paper by sliding off. Open the Mentos and place them inside the scrap paper tube you just created. This will be your “launcher” and you’ll use it to quickly drop the candy into the bottle.

6. We placed our volcano in a more natural setting and added a few dinosaurs for effect. If you are doing this somewhere else, you may want to protect your surface with a towel or plastic bag.

7. Open the bottle of diet cola and use the launcher to drop the Mentos into the bottle. Watch as your homemade volcano quickly erupts.

Diet Cola Volcano Activity- drop candy into bottle

This homemade volcano is a super fun and fast kids science project that works well for homeschool classes, or just a fun idea to teach kids about science concepts. You can even include some fun books or lessons on volcanos to round out this activity.