Friday Science Experiment, 18/03/11

In room 2 we have been doing science experiments and our latest was:

Milk, food colouring and dishwashing liquid.

The process:

First we poured milk into a bowl so the bowl was almost full, then we poured some food colouring in (you don’t want to put too much in), next we poured a little bit of dish washing liquid in.

What happened was all the food colouring moved away from the dish washing liquid. That first attempt was as a class, after that we went off into small groups and did it ourselves.

What we saw:

Some people did it perfectly so the food colouring spread out across the surface of the milk and made patterns. Other groups added too much food colouring and it did not spread well. We learnt to be careful with measuring how much of an ingredient we use when doing experiments.

Why the colouring spread out:

The dish-washing liquid broke the surface tension on the milk (this is when the molecules are all holding together tightly).

By: Fern Anderson