This project is kind of a transition between this week's science subject and our next unit. After a week off for "Spring Break", we are going to start a unit on plants.
We started off with a bouquet of white mums.
Then we filled six glasses about 2/3 full of water and added a different color of food coloring to each glass. We trimmed the stem of the mums with a pair of scissors, so they would absorb the water easier. Then we place one stem in each glass and set the glasses in a sunny window.
We started this project early Thursday afternoon. Within four hours, we were already seeing a tiny bit of color on the flower petals.
By the next morning, the color change was much more obvious, but only with some of the colors. Blue, green, and yellow worked. The flowers in the red food coloring never got any more color than this:
Another odd thing about the flowers in red, was that the leaves started shriveling up by Sunday, while the leaves in the other colors were still fully open and had started to change color.
The orange colored water was made with a mixture of yellow and red food coloring, so those have turned yellow and the leaves have wilted.
The plan for these flowers is for Blaze to have rainbow colored bouquets to give to his therapists for St. Patrick's Day on Tuesday.
Our other "water" project was making rainbows by spraying the garden hose.
Fun project! That was interesting about the red food dye...I've heard that stuff isn't good for people either.
ReplyDeleteI found the same thing with red food colouring and celery. Those flowers are beautiful, nicer than celery I think!
ReplyDeleteThis project has been on a lot of blogs I've been reading lately. We'll have to try it. I don't usually buy food coloring. I wonder if it works with natural dyes like beet juice or something. hmmmm.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea. We've done it in the past but never so many. What a nice bouquet you will have!
ReplyDeleteSuper cute. They turned out so pretty!
ReplyDeleteNow that's exactly why we try to avoid eating things with food coloring in them! :)
ReplyDeleteYour flowers are beautiful! We've done this with celery stalks and once split the stalk at the bottom and put half in red and half in blue. Flowers are much nicer to display afterwards though!
I've heard red is the worst for you as far as dyes go, so your experiment didn't *surprise* me, but I'd never really thought about it before. Much food for thought!
ReplyDeleteI just love your blog. I'm behind on my reading, and I seemed to have saved your posts to the end knowing there'd be good brain food here. :)
What a great idea! Such pretty flowers, I know my kids will enjoy doing this as well.
ReplyDeleteI have been wanting to do this for awhile now---you may have inspired me to get going on it! Great job!
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