Friday, August 5, 2016

How Plants Absorb Water (experiment)


I always feel goofy sharing basic activities, but truthfully, sometimes the oldest and simplest things you can do with your kids are great learning opportunities.

The boys learned about how plants absorb water by dying flowers. Here's how we did it.



What You Need
Food Coloring
Flowers (we used daisies)
Water
Glasses/Vases/Bottles
Scissors

What to Do
Trim your flowers, cutting the stems on an angle under running water. A blunt flat end that sits squarely against the bottom of the vase, will make it difficult for the plant to draw up water.

Add 15-20 drops of food coloring in each vase. Add lukewarm water. 



Place a flower in each and observe over the next few days or week. If desired, keep a journal!



What We Observed
Even our leaves and flower petals were tinged with the dye. The blue dye had the most impact on the appearance of the flowers. Our yellow dye hardly made a noticeable difference. The boys were astounded to see the changes.



The oldest boy hypothesized that the plant would filter out the dye and there would be no noticeable difference. This experiment proved him wrong!



1 comment:

  1. We love the classic science,too! As always your posts are goobs of fun for us both:). I especially like your oldest sons expression when he learned the results of the experiment! Thank you for your continued dedication. We continue to look forward to find out "Whas nex?".

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