Colour Changing Flower Science Experiment
This colour changing flower science experiment is an amazing visual for kids. It teaches them how a plant drinks water and nourishes its petals or leaves.
Supplies Needed
- White flowers – 5
- Transparent Glasses – 5
- Scissors
- Food colour
- Water
You can do this experiment even with one flower. I used five as I had plenty of flowers with me.
You can use any white flowers for this experiment (white daisys, white roses or carnations). Try to use white flowers so that you can see the colour changes clearly.
Use fresh flowers otherwise the experiment won’t work.
Cut the stems of the flower diagonally.
Also, cut all the leaves on the stem. This will reduce the time of flower to absorb water.
Procedure for Colour Changing Flower Science Experiment
1) Fill each glass with water. Put 2 bottle caps of food colouring into it, one colour each. You will see many blogs saying 10-15 drops are enough. But it did not work with us. Also, I wanted the colours to pop up on the petals. Therefore, I added a lot of food colouring to the water.
2) Place one flower into each glass of coloured water and then watch as the flowers change colour.
The flowers won’t change their colour immediately, but after an hour or so you will start to see little colour appearing on the petals. After a few hours the petals will change colour. Leave the flowers overnight. The colour will continue to get darker.
After 4 hours
In the image below flowers were left overnight.
With this experiment, you can explain to your child that in real plants drink water from the roots. The stem helps to transports the water and nutrients from roots to leaves and flowers.
To older kids you can explain, our flowers didn’t have roots anymore they were still able to pull water up from the cup into the stem and up through the flower to the petals through capillary action . You can cut the stem and show them the tissue xylem.
I hope you find this activity of colour changing flower science experiment resourceful to teach your child about stems.
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