This week I'm talking about chemical reactions. Now before you start to have bad thoughts about this, I'm not asking you to balance equations. Especially not after telling you how to balance chemical equations the easy way.
Chemical reactions can be defined as two or more substances combining to form new substances. Energy can be given off, or can be required for reactions to happen. Chemical reactions can be really fun, especially if they are handled safely.
Periodic Videos is a channel on YouTube where (assumingly British) scientists cover all kinds of chemical reactions. One of their more popular series of videos is the alkali earth metals reacting with Water. Some of their greater videos can be found later in the article. You do not have to know much about chemistry at all to see cool reactions. Of course the more knowledge you know the better.
Alkali Metals & Water -- some background info
Alkali metals are all of the metals in group one (excluding Hydrogen for in this case anyways) that react with water. What happens is that the metal chosen reacts with the water giving off hydrogen gas and another substance. The further you do directly down the row, the more reactive the metals become. Francium is the most reactive alkali metal, but due to its radio active nature you wouldn't be able to get conventional access to it. Cesium, the second to last metal, is the most reactive metal in this case because we cannot count Francium.
