Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Moving Molecules - 30 Second Science

We really did this more as a boredom buster, than a science project today, but it is an easy way to demonstrate the idea, that water molecules speed up, or slow down, according to their temperature.




What you need:

  • 3 glass jars - one filled with very cold water, one filled with room temperature water, and one filled with boiling hot water.
  • Water soluble food coloring.
Fill the three glasses with the various temperatures of water.

Very quickly add a couple of drops of food coloring to each jar.

Watch to see how long it takes the food coloring to mix with the water in each glass. Because the water molecules will be moving faster in the hot water, the food coloring should mix faster, too.


As a bonus, give your kids some paper, and paint brushes, and move smoothly from science to art.


It's great to be a homeschooler.

3 comments:

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

Yep - this is classic. We didn't get to "what the world is made of" topics yet, but I think this is a great way to show some of it. And I like the art extension too.

Ticia said...

I'm thinking of doing this same thing with tea this week, to finally answer Batman's question of how is tea made.

Sherral said...

Great idea!