WALKING WATER, SCIENTIST OF THE WEEK

This week is was Miss Kylie's turn to demonstrate Scientist of the Week.  

Walking water!?  Have you ever heard of such a crazy thing?  Today we experimented with primary colors, water, paper towels, and some regular old Ball jars.  Here was the question: what will happen if you connect cups of different color water with paper towels?  We had few good ideas, but we had no idea we were going to get such a beautiful rainbow!

First, we were very diligent scientists and made some great observations.

Next, we made some reasonable hypotheses and took our votes.
1. One side of the paper towel will get wet and the other side will stay dry. (2)
2. The paper towels will turn purple, green, and orange. (4)
3. The paper towels will soak up all the water. (1)
4. The empty jars will fill with orange and green colored water. (3)
5. The paper towels will rip because they are fragile. (2)
6. The paper towels will turn orange and green. (1)

Getting started!

After a couple hours.

After an hour.

After the whole day!

Last, we made some observations and found out that #4 was correct.  The paper towels absorb the water. Gravity helps start to equalize the amount of water in each jar.  The red and yellow mix to make orange.  The blue and yellow mix to make green!  ​

This is a great experiment to try at home!  Check out this video for step-by-step direction.  You can even try it with some different colors!

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We also had a visit from our second secret reader...Yari's dad Mr. Val.  He read us a great book called Marathon Mouse.  A little mouse had a big dream to run the New York City Marathon, even though all the other mice thought he was crazy.  He trained hard, didn't listen to the naysayers, and completed his goal.  We learned that you can be anything you want to be and do anything you want to do...even if you're a little mouse!