The Digital Bits Science Labs are fun science experiments for young children. Kids, make sure you have an adult's permission before trying any of these science experiments.
Digital Bits Science Lab
Science Experiments and Education for Kids and Parents
Food coloring fireworks with oil-water separation
Description:
Oil and water don’t mix. Putting food coloring in oil, and letting it slowly settle into a glass of water will create “water fireworks”, little streamers of color cruising down through the water.
Equipment needed:
Cooking oil
Tall glass
Short glass
Cold water
The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:
Fill the TALL GLASS with cold water. Don’t fill it all the way - Leave at least an inch of space at the top.
Pour about an inch of cooking oil into the SHORT GLASS. Put two or three small drops of your favorite colors of food coloring into the cooking oil.
Stir the oil/coloring mix slightly, just enough to break up the globs of color a little bit.
Slowly pour the oil from the short glass into the tall glass.
The oil will rise to the top of the water, and you can watch the globs of food coloring slowly settle to the bottom of the oil. In a few seconds, the color will begin floating down from the top of the oil mixture. It will hit the oil/water separation, and coloring will stream down through the water, looking like little streamers of color:
This experiment shows how oil and water don’t mix. When you mix them together, they’ll separate. The food coloring “fireworks” help add some pizazz.
Because we don’t want the food coloring mixing with the water - we instead want to see our colors streaming trails through the liquid - we use cold water. See why cold water will slow down the mixing process.
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