Food Coloring Experiment

This is a really neat food coloring experiment to show your little ones what happens when plants drink.

What You Will Need

– four water glasses filled ¾ with water
– three white flowers
– four different food colorings

What You Will Do

Take two of the flowers and put them in two of the colors. Take the third flower and use a sharp knife to split the stem into two halves. You should be able to put one-half of each stem into the remaining two water glasses.

Now watch and see what happens to the flowers. The longer you wait, the more color will be drawn into the veins of the flower.

For a fun project, make a time lapse video of the leaves by taking pictures of their progress every five minutes.

What is Going On?

The stem of each flower “drinks’ up the water into the flowers and leaves where they produce food with it. The food dye is carried up along with the water and is deposited into the flower petals, which is what changes their color. Check out a time-lapsed video here. Neat!