Little Scientists: Can We Make Colours Move By Themselves?

For our our Little Scientists event  at Pearson Park, we experimented with the objects above to see if we could make colors move on their own. Experimenting is so much fun. It allows us the opportunity to make predictions or educated guesses as to what the outcome of our experiments may be.

Experiment 1 - Celery, Lettuce & Food Coloring Experiment 

We used : a glass jar, celery, water and food coloring

 

First we added food coloring to our water. We put both celery and lettuce into our jars. We watched and waited to see what would happen. Knowing that this experiment was going to take some time to see the results, we put our jars aside and completed our other experiments. After about 30 minutes, we could see the lettuce turning color. After 60 minutes, we could see the food coloring entering the veins of both vegetables. The lettuce had noticeably more coloring then the celery. The ends of our lettuce leaves has begun turning the same color as our food coloring - in this case they are blue. We used different colors of dye, but we found the darker colors made the results the easiest to see. This experiment allows us to see what happens when plants drink water, it's just like drinking through a straw.

 

 

Experiment 2 - Magic Marker Color Experiment

We used : paper towels, washable markers, and  to jars to hold our water

We drew a line using our markers 1 inch from the bottom of our paper towel strip. We put our strips in our cups of water so that just the tip of the paper towel was touching the water. After a few seconds, the water soaked up into the paper towel and our marker lines spread out moving down the paper towel. The marker experiment was like a race. The color began at the starting line, and we couldn't wait to see who's color would spread the farthest.

 

 

Experiment 3 – M&M Experiment 

We used : Water, 4 M&M’s (per person), and a container / dish to hold our water

For this experiment we added 4 different colored M & M's into a shallow dish. We covered them completely with water. Almost instantly, the colors began to separate from the candy. As long as the dishes remained untouched and stable, the colored water remained divided into 4 separate areas. When the dish was bumped or moved, the colors would mix together. Eventually the hard shell & the “M” came off of the candy and floated around the dish.

 

 

Experiment 4 – Magic Milk Colors

We used : milk, a shallow pan/dish, food coloring, Q-Tips, and Dish soap (we used Dawn)

When we had added enough milk to completely cover the bottom in our shallow bowls, we dropped 4 drops of food coloring into the milk. We used 3-4 different colors in each dish. We attempted to keep the drops close together near the center of the dish. First we dipped our Q-Tip into the center of the dish and nothing seemed to happen. Next we dipped the end of the Q-tip in the dish soap first and then touched the Q-tip to the center of the dish without swirling it. The colors instantly shoot out at lightning speed and began to swirl around the dish on their own! 

 

 

Experiment 5 – Explosion

We used : 1-2 1L bottle of pop (diet coke), Mentos, and a piece of paper

Although our final experiment really had nothing to do with moving color, we couldn't resist taking advantage of the nice weather outside to do something big and messy. We opened our bottle of soda and positioned it on a nearby bench. We unwrapped a whole roll of Mentos. Our goal was to drop all of the Mentos into the bottle of soda at the same time. To do this, we rolled a piece of paper into a tube just big enough to hold the loose Mentos. We positioned the tube directly over another piece of paper, that we used to cover the mouth of the bottle. Once we remove the paper, all of the candies should drop out of the tube into the bottle of pop at the same time. Everyone stood back, our brave volunteer slid out the piece of paper and we watched in amazement as our pop shot out of the bottle like a rocket. Once the mentos were in the bottle, it took only seconds for this to happen.

 

 

 

 

What a fun way to end our day! In all of our experiments, we were successful in making color move. After our messy pop explosion, we headed over to the splash pad and playground to cool down on this very hot summer day. There's nothing more fun than being able to do experiments and then get wet with of all our friends!

Little Scientists is one of our 20+ monthly events and is included in your membership fee of only $45 per year.  Your membership also includes a one year subscription to Today's Parent!  To get in on the fun this summer register here for a FREE 4 week trial membership!  

http://niagara.momstown.ca/user/register