Rainbow Garden!

EQUIPMENTS:

1. Some small plastic bottles or cups or pots (Seven would be best)
2. Some water
3. Different food colorings or inks (It would be best if you can manage all the seven colors of a rainbow)
4. Scissors
5. Some white flowers

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. At first, partially fill up the plastic bottles or cups with water
2. Then add different food coloring or ink to each bottle or cup.
3. Now cut the stem of each flower in a way that it’s a little longer than the height of the bottles or cups.
4. After that place a white flower in each bottle or cup.
5. Now wait for about 24 hours and observe what happens.
6. After 24 hours, exchange the flowers cups. For example – put the flower which was in the green water cup into another cup with yellow colored water.
7. Now observe or record how the flowers change.

RESULTS:

1. After 24 hours the flowers should take the color of each of their cup water and you should have a rainbow garden!
2. After exchanging the flowers, they change their colors according to the color of their cup water.

 

Rainbow Garden

EXPLANATIONS:

We humans have veins and arteries to transport fluids (blood) and nutrients. Plants also have a similar transport system. Cells called xylem and phloem carry food and water through the plant. The xylem is used to transport water and minerals and the phloem is a specialized tube to transport food.

When a plant loses water from stoma (Plural stomata) in the leaves it has to recover the water somehow. To do that, the plant sucks water up from its roots through its xylem cells. Small particles such as food coloring or ink can be sucked up along with the water through the plant body. That’s why the white flowers take on the color when they are placed in a colored water. When the cells of the flower is filled with water, they take up the food coloring or ink as well.

MORE EXPLANATIONS:

Transpiration is the process in which plants loses water. It’s a continuous process. The water inside a plant is always being cycled. That’s why a white flower dyed with food coloring or ink can be changed when placed in water with another color. As long as the white flower is alive and healthy, the color of the white flower can be changed into any color.

MORE EXPERIMENTS FOR YOU:

1. Put a colored white flower into clear water and see what happens.
2. Set up about three plastic bottles or cups with three different colors such as red, green and blue. Place a white flower in the first cup. Move it to another cup in three hours. Move it again after three hours. What happens to the petals of the flower?
3. Use naturally colorful flower in this experiment to see what happens.

Cool & Hot together!

EQUIPMENTS:

1. Two transparent plastic bottles
2. Water
3. Blue food coloring or blue ink
4. Red food coloring or red ink
5. A saucepan
6. A thick piece of sheet such as an index card

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. At first fill one plastic bottle with water.
2. Then add some blue food coloring or blue ink in it.
3. Now place the bottle inside the refrigerator for about one hour.
4. Before getting the bottle out of the refrigerator, use the sauce pan and the oven/stove to heat enough water to fill the other plastic bottle bottle. Be careful not to boil the water. Otherwise some of the water will be vaporized. But heat the water pretty well.
5. After heating the water fill it in the other plastic bottle.
6. Then add some red food coloring or red ink.
7. Now take the blue water bottle out of the fridge and place it on a flat surface.
8. Hold the thick piece of paper (Such as an index card) on the top of the opening of the red water bottle.
9. Then quickly invert the red water bottle over the blue water bottle and line up the bottle openings.
10. When the plastic bottle openings are perfectly aligned, carefully slide the thick paper out from between the bottles.
11. Now create a chart just like the one shown below and record what happens.

COLOR	CHNAGES
Red Bottle
Blue Bottle

RESULTS:

The cold blue water stays on the bottom and the red hot water stays on the top.

EXPLANATIONS:

This experiment/project shows the advantage of the effect of temperature on density. A cooler liquid is much more dense than a warmer liquid. The molecules in cool water move around lesser than molecules in hot water. They have less energy to spare for motion because the temperature is lower. It’s because the cold water molecules move less, more molecules may be packed into the same total volume than in the case of hot water. This makes cold water much more dense than hot water.

On the other hand, because of the difference in density, the hot water tends to float on top of the cold water rather than mix with it. This is why the colors stay separate. The longer the hot and cold water are left within contact, the closer their temperature will become. Eventually the blue and red water will begin to mix with one another.

MORE EXPERIMENTS FOR YOU:

1. Try the same experiment again. Only this time place the cold water bottle over the hot water bottle.
2. Observe the difference between the amount of motion in the molecules of hot water against the motion of molecules of cold water by adding three drops of food coloring or ink to a cup of refrigerated water. Also add three drops of food coloring or ink to a cup of heated water. See in which cup does the color blend first?