PAINT THE ROSES RED
In the tale of Alice in Wonderland the gardeners found suddenly found themselves in a tricky spot. All of the roses in the garden were WHITE when the Queen of Hearts demanded that all flowers must be RED!!! What to do??
If
only the Queen’s gardeners had known this scientific experiment, they could
have fixed the problem in no time, and escaped the Queen’s wrath.
WHAT YOU NEED:
-
4
Glasses
-
Red
and Blue Food Coloring
-
3
Fresh White Flowers
-
Scissors
HOW TO DO THE EXPERIMENT:
1.
Fill
two glasses with blue food coloring, and two glasses with red food coloring. Then
add ¼ cup of water to each glass.
2.
Cut
the stems of each of the flowers at an angle with scissors. With the third
flower, slice ¾ of the stem down the middle using a knife.
3.
Place
the first flower in the glass filled with blue food coloring. Place the second
flower in the glass filled with red food coloring. With the third flower, place
one end of the stem in the second blue food coloring glass and the other in the
second glass of red food coloring.
4.
Let the
flowers soak for a few days, and WATCH THE COLORS CHANGE!!
WHY DOES IT WORK?
Plants
absorb water through their roots. The water moves up the stem into the leaves
and flowers. When a flower is cut from its roots, the stem becomes the point
where the flower “drinks”. Through transpiration and cohesion, water moves up
the plant similar to the way water moves up a straw. Coloring the water that
the plant takes up does not damage the plant; however, it does allow us to see
how water moves through the flower. Splitting the stem shows another cool idea
– the tubes at which water moves up the stem exist all across the stem and run
all the way up to the petals of the flower.
