The white flowers growing in our yard inspired me in this activity. I had been thinking it, and looked at buying flowers to do it a few months ago but flowers can be pricey. Instead these color changing flowers were inspired by nature.
This is a simple science experiment for your kids, starting quiet young, about three years. It teaches them how a plant absorbs water up it’s stem and nourishes its petals or leaves.
Color Changing Flowers
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Because our flowers were small, the change took place really fast. The longer the stem and bigger the flower they longer it is going to take. I hope to remember to pick up flowers, such as carnations, after Thanksgiving or Valentine’s Day and do these over again.
All you need is:
- clear water
- food color
- containers
- white flowers
Simply add food color to the water in individual containers and add your white flowers.
After an hour:
You can see a little of the red and blue in the veins of the flower petals. After only an hour, mainly because our flowers are just small.
After almost 3 hours:
Aren’t they pretty? I love the red. You can see a little yellow in the… yellow watered flower.
You can see on the edge of this photo that we also had a container of green water. Nothing happened with those flowers. Not sure why. The darker the food color you have, the better you’ll be able to see it as well. The yellow was harder to see at first.
To keep your flowers going, and get more color in them, trim the bottom of the stem a little in the morning.
This was a great activity as we are gardening and growing vegetables and flowers. It just goes to show the importance of watering our plants. And they do see what happens when you don’t water them… I am terrible at remembering to water my houseplants.
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