We finally dyed white flowers with food coloring!
Or liquid watercolors, rather.
This is one of two activities that remained undone from a list of 31 artful activities that I made two years ago. Maybe it just wasn’t the right time before now.
Yeah, that must be it.
This is one of our favorite simple science experiments for kids!
MATERIALS
- Daisies or other white flowers
- Food coloring or liquid watercolors
- Droppers (optoinal)
- Small jars or cups
First, we picked our daisies from the backyard and put each in a glass jar with an inch or so of water.
Then Maia added liquid watercolors
to dye the flowers, one color per jar. Yellow. Magenta. Purple, Turquise. And then some red food coloring for the last flower since we were out of red liquid watercolors but wanted to try the color.
The flowers started changing color within the hour!
I wasn’t expecting such quick results. I thought it would be one of those subtle science experiments where the color changes very slightly over several days. But no, it changed fairly quickly.
It was really pretty fascinating.
And I had to dredge up some basic biology to explain why the color in the water appears in the petals. About how the flowers suck water up through the stem and the water evaporates out of the petals, but the food coloring can’t evaporate. I may even have used the word “transpiration” and I can just hope I said it in the right context.
By the end of the afternoon, all the flowers had taken on their paint colors to varying degrees, with blue being the star of the show.
Have you tried this?
Update: We’ve since done this experiment with two to three colors PER flower by splitting the stem. Super cool! To see how we did it, check out our post about the patriotic flowers we made for 4th of July Decorations.
I’m loving all these artful and simple science experiments for kids!
This post contains affiliate links.
Rachel
July 13, 2011 at 7:34 amsuper fun! now i just need to find some flowers… you better hold onto the ones in your yard! ;)
Sara Downes
July 13, 2011 at 7:45 amAwesome going to try that with my daycare kiddos!!
amy @ kids in the studio
July 13, 2011 at 8:15 amWe have done this. It works quicker when the stems are short like that–we didn’t cut our carnations short enough and it took a really long time for the color to show up in the petals. If you cut a bit off the bottom of one of the stems, Maia can look at it through a loupe or magnifying glass and see how the color is in the stem, too. That should help her see how the stem acts like a straw. My 7yo, in particular, loved looking at the stem & petals through the loupe.
The Artful Parent
July 13, 2011 at 8:31 amCome over and pick some! Totally fine, Rachel.
The Artful Parent
July 13, 2011 at 8:32 amOkay! We’ll try that next time! Thanks.
Nancy
July 13, 2011 at 10:32 amOne of my kids did this with celery (with the leaves attached) and food colouring at school. I suppose you could eat it if you want to as well. Mmm, edible science!
I came across this website which has some interesting science experiments. The main emphasis is selling you science supplies and you have to search a bit harder to find the experiments but it is worth it in the end. http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/giant-bubble-experiment
Jill
July 13, 2011 at 10:45 amThis is a great project idea. I am going to give this a try.
Barbara Zaborowski
July 13, 2011 at 11:07 amAfter you color the flower petals, you can put some bleach in water and make them white again. I haven’t tried it yet as I just learned about it, but definitely will next fall.
Laurie
July 13, 2011 at 12:09 pmTo take it one step further you can mix two colors, and if the dye components are chemically distinct, they will separate into bands. We did this with easter egg dyes one year and discovered the purple dye was actually a mix of red and blue. In the lab, this separation technique is called chromatography.
Nancy
July 13, 2011 at 10:40 amOh, and I thought of you when I saw this Sharpie marker tie dye tshirt “experiment” on the same website. I originally saw this on another website (that I hadn’t bookmarked) and they were drawing cute hearts and flowers with Sharpie markers before dispersing the colours with rubbing alcohol; although this website explains the science behind it better. http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000032
Lou
July 13, 2011 at 4:03 pmI love this experiment. Will have to buy some liquid food colouring next time I am at the shops. I’d love to be a primary school teacher if it wasn’t for the “having to look after 30 children” thing!!!
abbyjane
July 14, 2011 at 1:58 pmWe did this experiment yesterday and it was a great success! Thank you for the idea! Here is my post about it: http://whileshenaps.typepad.com/whileshenaps/2011/07/coloring-flowers-and-a-lovey.html
FireMom
July 16, 2011 at 9:46 pmAbsolutely adore this. My oldest is very into Science right now. He’d love this!
This girl loves to Talk
July 16, 2011 at 11:14 pmworks with celery too! not as noticeable on green leaves but if you use red or blue dye you can definatly see the change.
We’ve done this experiment several times and my kids always enjoy it.
molly
July 17, 2011 at 7:10 pmWe used to do that Sharpie marker dye thing on shirts at the kids camp I worked at. It is really fun and the kids loved it!
Jenny Rebecca
July 18, 2011 at 10:10 amI think we had defective daisies. Only one flower turned a color, but we still had great fun experimenting. :o)
Shoes
July 20, 2011 at 10:44 pmWhat a fun idea! We were pretty excited to try this today. Not sure why, but our daisies did not turn such brilliant colors as your did. Perhaps it was because they were nearing the end of their days. Also I am not sure of the proper edicate (I am quite new to this whole blogging thing) but I linked to your post on this as I thought this was such a great science project. Thanks! :-)
Katrina
July 23, 2011 at 11:11 pmYou just went in your backyard and picked those beautiful flowers!!?! I am in Texas and totally jealous–flowers/greenery are pretty non-existent right now due to the heat and drought. There are, however, wild yellow sunflowers. They stink terribly, but I wonder if they would absorb color the same way as the white ones do? I will try to find out tomorrow! I love that the change happens so quickly, perfect for my short-attention-spanned little ones.
wall art
February 17, 2012 at 5:20 amIt is like the way you colorize the white roses. I thought they were sunflowers. This is m first time to see daisies.
MIsty
January 12, 2014 at 11:35 pmmy daughter wants to do this experiment for school what category would it fall under?? is it osmosis or evaporation? do you know where I could find out??