How Did My Soda Bottle Get Crushed Like This? Science!

This is the perfect science experiment to teach kids about how the environment around them works, and you can enjoy a day in the outdoors while doing it.

When I grabbed the this empty soda bottle out of my car when I got home, I found it was all dented in. It wasn't the heat that did it, but something else that shows you how awesome science and weather is.

This weekend, we drove to the top of Mt. Washington and along the way I had a bottle of Mountain Dew in the car. At the top I finished it before we explored the summit at 6000 feet. When I got home I found the side of the bottle caved in. After a minute or so I realized how it happened.

The atmospheric pressure at the top of Mt. Washington is much lower than the pressure at the base. As I write this, the pressure at the top of Mt. Washington is 23.78in while in Portland its at 29.81in. As we drove down the mountain the air trapped inside the bottle was at a lower pressure than the air outside the bottle. The outside air pushes in at a higher pressure the air in the bottle, so the sides cave in. Science!