Welcome to the wonderful world of chemistry. Today, with the help of the corrosion set by Mel chemistry, we will see how iron corrodes under various conditions. Perform this experiment on the plastic tray to contain any possible spills. Don't forget to put on protective gloves and goggles before doing the experiment. To open a bottle containing a reagent, push the cap down and turn it. Pierce the bottle nozzle with an unbent paper clip. For the iron corrosion experiment, you will need sodium hydroxide solution. Take the iron wool, measuring spoon, wooden stick, and numbered stickers from the experiment set. Take three disposable cups from your starter kit. Also, make sure you have still water, sparkling water, and vegetable oil. Number the three plastic cups using the stickers. Take the iron wool, divide it into three pieces, and put one piece in each cup. Fill the first two cups with still water. Fill the third cup with sparkling water. Prod the iron wool in the third cup with the wooden stick until all the bubbles are forced out of it. Add one big spoon of sodium hydroxide solution to the first cup. Leave the second cup alone. Add enough vegetable oil to the third cup to completely cover the surface of the water. If the iron wool floats, hold it down with the wooden stick and wait for the bubbles to filter out. Wait one hour, then compare the three cups. The iron wool in the second cup will have rusted, but the iron wool in the first and third cups will remain unchanged. The iron in the second cup reacts with the oxygen dissolved in the water, forming rust. Iron doesn't rust in a basic medium, so the iron wool in the first cup will remain unaffected. Sparkling water contains less oxygen than regular water to begin with, and the layer of oil doesn't allow any oxygen in from the surrounding air. This drastically slows the process of corrosion, and in an hour, there will be little if any visible difference to the iron wool in the third cup. Learn more about this experiment on our MelScience website.