Chemistry Continues

Growing up, I rarely had a chemistry set to work with.  I do recall friends who did though.  I recall them looking something like:

My personal chemistry set looked something more like:

When trying to think of a fun way to introduce students to chemical reactions, I recalled how much fun it is to simply mix unknown things together to find out which might explode.  That is the goal of course...to blow up the kitchen with mixtures of cleaning solutions.

As it turns out, my students experience the same kind of excitement if I give them an array of chemicals to mix together and observe for any kind of chemical change.  I don't tell them that there's no chance of fire erupting from their beakers, and they will continue mixing combinations of chemicals together in hopes that it will.