Experimenting with Courtney

Courtney came on Monday last week and again this week instead of her usual Tuesday after-school-with-Grandma G. The reason for that is that she is going to a 4-H Adventures group on Tuesdays for a few weeks. She told me that last week at Adventures they did an experiment, and she wanted me to try it, too. "You'll like it, Grandma!" Oookay! Let's give it a try and see what happens!

Here's our mad little scientist (doesn't look very mad, does she?):

She said we needed two plates, some milk, dishwashing liquid, food coloring, and a toothpick. Here we have them. The milk is in the top saucer and a few drops of (clear, so kind of hard to see) dishwashing liquid is in the bottom saucer.

Then she put a little bit of each of the colors of food coloring onto the milk, as shown below.

Next she dipped the toothpick into the dishwashing liquid....

.... and just touched it to the bottom of the saucer, in the center.

What happened was a fun surprise! Without moving the toothpick, the food coloring began to move around! It just kept swirling around and making different patterns.

It was so much fun!

Toward the end, she began moving the colors a bit herself to get them to mix a little more. Here are a couple of videos of the action:

It was so cool, as well as surprising to see what happened. If there are any kids in your life, have them give it a try. Or just do it yourself for the fun of it. :)