I caught an edition of Eureka yesterday morning on BBC2 in which a younger, less assured Ferne Cotton and a Scottish lass who I vaguely recognised, tried to convince us they knew about science. This was particularly unconvincing re Ms Cotton, who is much more authoritative when telling Sam and Mark how crap they are. Nevertheless as a kiddie science show it hit the baseline of being informative. At least until they got to the experiment you could do at home. To their credit, they did suggest perhaps doing it in the garden – nevertheless…
Put three cups of malt vinegar in a ziplock bag. To this add three tablespoons of bicarbonate of soda wrapped in tissue paper (to slightly delay the reaction). Zip up the bag and retire to a safe distance. Obviously base + acid = oodles of gas = puffed up, then exploding bag. However as it explodes it will spurt a pungently vinegary spray all over the area. Coating the room (if done at home) and you, if you are nearby. Mothers the length and breadth of the country are cursing Eureka now.
(Oddly there is no link to this experiment on their website!)