Today, we tried an experiment out of a new book, "The Curious Kid's Science Book" by Asia Citro. We have only had the book for a couple of weeks and have just started looking through it, but so far, I'm really impressed. It's full of great ideas for slightly more complex investigations and experiments, and the chapters are well organized so you can easily find a project or experiment in a particular category. For example, they have a whole chapter on baking soda and vinegar, one on plants and living things, and one on food and candy, which we tried today.
Then, we put water in four cups and used food coloring to make 4 different colors - red, yellow, green, blue. Just the basics. Next, the idea is to drop droplets of the colored water into the oil and notice how the droplets stay droplets and do not mix with the water. Unfortunately, I didn't have any droppers or pipettes, so we used spoons, which was much messier but still worked. The girls dropped and poured the water in and it was pretty cool. We talked about how the water molecules and oil molecules don't mix. It was really interesting to see the water drops sitting on the oil, and then some of the water drops mixed together making new colors. As the girls continued to pour water in, it got pretty messy, so then we added some drops of dish soap in and saw how that caused the oil and water to move.
After that, we took two small, clear mason jars and put a few inches of oil in them. We then added red water to one jar, and yellow water to the other jar. Then, we look at how, again, the oil and water did not mix. You could see the clear layer of oil sitting by itself and the layer of colored water remaining separate. Then we shook it and saw how they seemed to mix, but when we waited, we saw that they began to separate again. Pretty cool! Again, more fun with the addition of the colors.
Overall, it was an easy and fun project that allowed the girls to explore the concepts of mixing, emulsions, and molecules, while using materials we had on hand.
Lesson
I wanted to do a science-related project with things we had on hand, so I checked out the food and candy chapter. We chose to do an exploration with oil and colored water, because it's always fun to play with food coloring. We haven't experimented with oil and water yet, so I thought this could be interesting. We had also been talking about molecules and how things mix when reactions cause bonds to break and new molecules to form, so this seemed to be a lesson in line with those concepts.How to Do the Experiment
First, I melted some refined coconut oil, since that was the most abundant oil I had on hand (in the future, I will purchase some cheaper vegetable oil for experiments!). I poured the melted, clear oil into a glass baking dish, and put it on the counter with white paper underneath to make it easier to see the colors in the next part.Then, we put water in four cups and used food coloring to make 4 different colors - red, yellow, green, blue. Just the basics. Next, the idea is to drop droplets of the colored water into the oil and notice how the droplets stay droplets and do not mix with the water. Unfortunately, I didn't have any droppers or pipettes, so we used spoons, which was much messier but still worked. The girls dropped and poured the water in and it was pretty cool. We talked about how the water molecules and oil molecules don't mix. It was really interesting to see the water drops sitting on the oil, and then some of the water drops mixed together making new colors. As the girls continued to pour water in, it got pretty messy, so then we added some drops of dish soap in and saw how that caused the oil and water to move.
After that, we took two small, clear mason jars and put a few inches of oil in them. We then added red water to one jar, and yellow water to the other jar. Then, we look at how, again, the oil and water did not mix. You could see the clear layer of oil sitting by itself and the layer of colored water remaining separate. Then we shook it and saw how they seemed to mix, but when we waited, we saw that they began to separate again. Pretty cool! Again, more fun with the addition of the colors.
Overall, it was an easy and fun project that allowed the girls to explore the concepts of mixing, emulsions, and molecules, while using materials we had on hand.
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