 your results
Sent in by:
Renee of Washington, D.C.
Change the color of a flower!
- white flowers, like white carnations or Queen Anne's Lace
- food coloring
- water
- a plastic container
- Check with a grown-up before you begin.
- You know that plants need water to grow, make seeds, and stay healthy.
- Renee of Washington D.C. told us a way we can see how all the parts of the plant get water.
- Fill a plastic container with water and add a few drops of food coloring.
- Cut a small piece of the stem off of the flower.
- Put the flower in the container of food coloring and water.
- Check every few hours to see how the petals are changing color. The only way the petals can change color is if the food coloring travels up the stem and goes to the petals.
- After about one day, the petals of the flower will turn from white to the color of the food coloring.
- Here's how this works. The leaves and petals of plants have lots of small holes called stomates. They're too small to see. Water evaporates through these holes. This is called transpiration. After the water evaporates, the plant needs more water to grow.
- If the flower is planted in soil, the roots of the plant get the water from the soil and then the water travels up through its stem.
- But, if the flower is in a container of water, it doesn't have any roots so it just sucks up the water through its stem.
- So, now when you see a flower that's an unnatural color, like a bright green carnation on St. Patrick's Day, you'll know how it was made. You can also dye a flower two different colors by splitting the stem in half and putting it in two different containers of colored water.
What do you think will happen to the flower if you change the temperature of the water? Experiment. Think of a question that you want answered. Like, what would happen if you put the flowers in water with sugar and food coloring? Make a prediction. Test it out by setting-up three flowers in three different containers of water. They should each contain the same amount of water and food coloring. Then, to one container add a little sugar, to the other add a lot of sugar, and to the third, don't add any sugar. Make some observations and then send your results to ZOOM.
Mackenzie, age 10 of Cleveland, OH wrote:
I'm going to use red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet(purple), lavender, pink & last lemon. Check it out. I use Queen Anne's Lace. My faveroite white flower of times.
Samatha, age 15 of AZ wrote:
its was wonderful.
Dulce, age 13 of Four Oaks, NC wrote:
Me and my friend chose this experiment for our final science grade/project of 8th grade. We did this experiment as a class but we wanted to see it with our own eyes and it worked.
Ana, age 11 of CA wrote:
when I first did it i thought it was not going to work but it did. I was so amazed.
Jada, age 10 of New York, NY wrote:
the flower turn purple. cool.
Lilly, age 9 of San Isidro, TX wrote:
in a day the flower turned green!
Carinna, age 8 of San Diego, CA wrote:
it was awesume!!! When I first put it in I went to bed. today the edges stared to turn green. it was so cool but im not done.
Cheyenne, age 11 of Hillsboro, OR wrote:
I'm doing this for science and it works. you should try it at home.
Madison of Highlands Ranch, CO wrote:
I tried using daisies and carnations. Both kinds of flowers turned color, but the daisies did it the fastest and were darker. The blue and green worked the best.
Hannah of Highland Village, TX wrote:
I did the sci project for a science project at school. These are my results complete and absolute failure!!! what happened???
Jalen, age 9 of Louisville, KY wrote:
i got a white rose and I put any color I wanted to make the flower change colors and it happend like that.
Dana, age 16 of Harvard wrote:
Well first I used the wrong ink but when I used food coloring it totally worked!
Abril, age 6 of Kearns wrote:
my flowers become blue! and then my grama saw that the flowers were changing color. then she asked me and I said I chaind the color. she was almost scared.
Raine, age 10 of Palmyra, NY wrote:
We used daisies and pink, purple and blue dye. The pink and purple did not work at all, and the blue came out speckled on the leaves, however it worked the best of the three.
ZOOM Fan, age 10 of Fort Collins, CO wrote:
I found out the darker the color is the slower it develops.
Kimberly, age 7 of Oak Creek, WI wrote:
It was so cool I want to do it again. Everyone thinks I'm a scientist and thanks to you.
Evelyn, age 15 of Albany wrote:
it did work. it was the best project.
Mitchell, age 12 of Worcester, MA wrote:
I am doing it for a scince fair project and its starting to change color but it took like a week.
Perla, age 12 of Phoenix, AZ wrote:
it did change colors.
Angel, age 9 of Worcester, MA wrote:
it turned pink, blue, green, yellow, peach, teal, lavender.
Shaquille, age 14 of Hartford, CT wrote:
it changed colors.
Kaitlyn, age 14 of Sammamish, WA wrote:
the flower turned blue when I put the food dye in after a day. Everything went well but I was wondering if this was a physical or a chemical change?
Kira, age 13 of Holliston, MA wrote:
I am doing this for a science fair project for biology class. I am testing how the kind of flower affects how much food coloring it abosrbs. Keep your flowers in the same room with the same air temp, humidity and radiation. This will affect the plants' osmosis.
Sydney, age 11 of Marlborough, MA wrote:
I am doing this for a science fair project. I am doing A LOT of research and I hope it works!
Michael, age 9 of Big Spring, TX wrote:
I put one white carnation in red food coloring, another carnation that I cut the stem on in 2 glasses (red and blue coloring) and a 3rd flower in blue and green. After 24 hours the red carnation was RED, the green started to turn that part of the flower green. But the red and blue did not work very well. Did this for a science fair project and did very well.
Natali, age 10 of TX wrote:
how dose the flower get the color
Sabrina, age 11 of FL wrote:
What would be the variable, independent variable, dependent variable, etc. for this experiment??? HELP!
Jenny, age 11 of San Jose, CA wrote:
It turned into pretty colors. I got mine to be pink, purple, yellow, and orange!!! It was so cool!!=)
Raven, age 10 of Topeka wrote:
I put food coloring into the water the flower changed but if you cut the stem in half but still connected. Okay then see what happened! I know what happens but you figure it out... tell me bye.
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