Happy almost 4th of July and Happy Science Friday! This experiment was super simple which is always a bonus for busy parents! The purpose of the project was simple to “test” the movement of water. We asked some pretty straightforward questions: Does water move? How? How does temperature affect the movement of water? How?

For this experiment you will need two bowls. One with hot water and one with cold water. You will need food coloring. Preferably blue and red. The blue for the cold water, the red for the hot water.

When we began I asked each of the children to tell me what they though would happen when we put the food coloring into the water.

“It will mix,” said Parker.

“Okay, what else might happen to the food coloring?”

They each thought about his for a moment. “Which color do you think will mix more quickly into the water? The blue or the red?”

“Blue,” M said definitively.

“The red,” P replied.

“… I don’t know. I’m waiting to see what happens,” Miss I told me.

On we went! See for yourself what we discovered!

XX, Megan

The red food coloring quickly dispersed through each dish as we added the color. The blue food coloring also began to disperse through the water, but its progress was much, much slower. You can see in I’s bowls above. The red is almost fully integrated into the water, whereas the blue is still in a very concentrated area in the center of the bowl where she deposited the color.

Our findings led us to conclude that water DOES move. We talked about how water moves on the molecular level and how heat is a characteristic of higher energy substances. This also explains why the red food coloring mixes so quickly with the water. The hot water molecules are moving much more rapidly than the cold ones.

We’d love to hear how your experiment turns out! What were your findings? What was your favorite part of this experiment?

Have a wonderful Friday!!!