October 7: Color Changing Milk

This science activity originally comes from the Steve Spangler Website, but it's no longer posted.  It is very cool, though, so here's what you do.  Take a plate and pour milk to fill it.  Drip one drop of a few different colors of food coloring in the middle of the milk.  Try to keep the drops fairly close together.  Take a q-tip and dip it in the middle of the colors to see what happens (do NOT stir it).  Then put a drop of dish soap on the q-tip and place it in the middle of the colors again (for 10-15 seconds) and watch what happens.  Ty and Brielle were both excited about the movement of colors!  You can repeat that last step and place the q-tip elsewhere in the milk and watch what happens. 

Food coloring drops in milk.

Food coloring reacting to the soap in milk.

So what makes the food coloring move? 

     "Milk is mostly water but contains some vitamins, minerals, proteins, and tiny droplets of fat suspended in 

     solution.  Fats and proteins are sensitive to changes in the surrounding solution (milk)."  (Steve Spangler)

Apparently, the soap molecules weaken the chemical bonds in the milk's fats and proteins and then the soap molecules "chase" the fat molecules to connect them them.  I didn't explain all this to Ty and Brielle...maybe someday.

We decided to try this same experiment with food coloring in water.  I didn't expect much to happen based on the Steve Spangler website's information, but I was wrong.  It wasn't as dramatic as when it was in the milk, but still fun!

Food coloring in water.

Food coloring reacting to the soap.

Ty wanted to try something else for an experiment, so I pulled out the water color paint books and told the kids to see what happened when they painted with water.  They spent the next 30 minutes painting with water!  So fun!