Walking Water Experiment
Science is super cool with walking water! We'll use paper towels to help colorful water defy gravity and climb into empty cups. Watch the colors mix and marvel at the science behind it.
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Ingredients
- 6 small, clear glasses
- paper towels
- Food coloring blue, red, and yellow work well
- Water
- Scissors
- Kraft paper or tray or surface that can get wet
Instructions
- Arrange 6 cups in a circle or a straight line close together, but not touching.
- Fill every other cup about halfway with water. There should be an equal number of water-filled and empty cups.
- Add the red color to the first cup, the yellow color to the second, and the blue color to the third. You can repeat the colors or create a new combination if you have more cups.
- Fold the paper towels lengthwise to increase their strength. You'll need ½ of the paper towel for each pair of cups. Trim the paper towel if necessary.
- Place one end of a paper towel into a cup with colored water and the other end into an empty cup next to it. Make sure the paper towel is touching the bottom of both cups. Repeat this process, connecting all the cups with paper towels.
- Over time, you'll see the colored water "walk" up the paper towel and into the empty cups. You'll observe new colors forming as the colors mix in the empty cups. For example, red and yellow will create orange, blue and yellow will make green, and so on.
- Talk about what's happening! The water moves through the paper towels through a process called capillary action. This is the same process that helps plants pull water up from their roots.
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