Learn about colors, color combinations and chemical reactions with Color Dotz

Description:

Learn about colors and color mixing while splashing around.

Equipment needed:

Crayola® Bathtub Tints, also called “Color Dotz”. If you’re really ambitious, get the Crayola® Bathtub Tints – 3 Pack.

Water. H2O. Lots of it. Favorite locations could be an outside kiddie pool, or a bathtub.

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

The Color Dotz bathtub tints aren’t much more than small dry tablets containing a little washable dyes. They fizz when placed in water, releasing the coloring and making your bath or pool a swirly, colorful whirpool of mixing colors. (While I haven’t had problems, and these are listed as “non-toxic, non-fragrant, biodegradable, non-irritable to skin and eyes, and easy-to-clean”, do a test run to make sure the tints won’t stain your bathtub!)

The benefit to the child depends on their age:

For very young children, this is a fun and wet way to learn about colors while playing with bubbling, fizzy tablets.

As the childen get older, you can introduce the concept of mixing colors, how “red plus blue equals purple”: Hand them the tints for red and blue, let them play, and show how the red and blue water mixes to make purple.

This combining of dyes (and paints and other liquids) to create new colors is called “subtractive color mixing”.

Older children could experiment with the fact that the Color Dotz are made primarily from sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate and citric acid. (The fizzing process is caused by water causing a reaction between the sodium carbonates and the acid. The gas released is carbon dioxide.)

For those older kids, there are a lot of fun things you can do with Color Dotz:

Load a balloon with a few Color Dotz, add water, and tie up the end. Stand back – the releasing gasses will expand and explode the balloon! (I probably shouldn’t have to say this, but just in case: DO THIS OUTSIDE!)

Drop Color Dots on the ground outside, and run the hose or sprinkler. Follow the path of the water. Water tracing techniques like this are used by professionals that need to trace currents, detect leaks, flow studies, and for many other uses. (The difference with the professionals is that they use slightly different dyes – these are often flourescing dyes, for easier identifiation and tracking.

Other articles related to this topic:

• Learn colors and color combinations with food coloring
• Color mixing with plastic tiles
• How to make your own rainbow, and meet “Roy G. Biv”
• Build a CD spinner and learn color combinations
• Magnifying glass experiment: How does your computer and TV make colors?