Home Explorations CO2
We have heard about carbon dioxide on the news. It has something to do with burning fuels and climate change--right? In this series of explorations we will find out more about carbon dioxide. Let's first read a story about a scientist that almost single handedly destroyed the atmosphere.
Thomas Midgley
Read the story of Thomas Midgley. It can be found here.
Although the chemicals that Midgley invented solved the problems of refrigeration and high octane fuel, they caused enormous damage to the atmosphere. Lead poisoning and ozone holes were the unintended consequences of these atmospheric additives. Today we are faced with new concerns about the atmosphere from what we once believed was a harmless gas, carbon dioxide. In this series of explorations we want to understand more about this gas and how it behaves.
You can do any or all of these explorations with materials found around the home.
A classic experiment showing the action of gases in air.
Proving carbon dioxide is a heavy gas
This experiment shows how to generate C02 and how to prove it is a heavy gas
How much gas is produced by a chemical reaction and how can we measure it?
We know that a chemical reaction can produce carbon dioxide. How can we show how carbon dioxide is made by human breathing?
Read and Listen to the impact that CO2 has on our earth.
