Flower Science Experiment

Having fun experimenting with photo textures... Clearer photos below.

We have some beautiful daffodils blooming in our yard (yes, Spring is a little late here in Northern Maine). Missy asked to do a science experiment with the daffodils.

First she added blue food coloring to the water, and as our daffodil started turning blue, Missy picked another daffodil and added red food coloring to its water. Then Missy split the stem of a third daffodil and put one half of the stem in red food coloring and half to blue food coloring.



We really enjoyed watching Missy's daffodils drink up the colored water and changing color. And since I really am not a science teacher, we googled 'science experiment with flower and dye' and discovered a more scientific explanation here (looks like a cool site!):

"Okay, now it's time to get technical. There are two things that combine to move water through plants -- transpiration and cohesion. Water evaporating from the leaves, buds, and petals (transpiration) pulls water up the stem of the plant. This works in the same way as sucking on a straw. Water that evaporates from the leaves "pulls" other water behind it up to fill the space left by the evaporating water, but instead of your mouth providing the suction (as with a straw) the movement is due to evaporating water. This can happen because water sticks to itself (called water cohesion) and because the tubes in the plant stem are very small (in a part of the plant called the xylem). This process is called capillary action."

This was such a neat and easy science experiment, and you can use pretty much any flower you have available. Have fun coloring your flowers :)