It's true – I can find the science in almost anything (just ask the rest of the KidsQuest staff).

Many of the science experiments I do come from Steve Spangler's Science and I love sharing fun and fabulous science experiments. The experiment below is currently one of my favorites. AND, I'll bet you have almost all of these ingredients in your house right now!

What you need:

2% or Whole Milk
Plastic plate (or regular plate)
Cotton Swab (i.e. Q-Tip)
Liquid Dish Soap (we like Dawn)
Food coloring (green, red, blue, yellow)

Here is what you want to do:

For the next step – it is important not to stir the mixture, just touch it with the tip of the cotton swab.

Wait for the ‘explosion’ of color! The colors should begin to mix.

What makes the food coloring in the milk move?

Do the colors in the milk continue to move even when the cotton swab is removed?

What is happening?

Was that not a great experiment?! So colorful! Like mini-firworks! Do you want to know why the colors moved around on their own? Well, here it is.

Milk is mostly water but it also contains proteins and tiny droplets of fat suspended in solution. (Milk also contains vitamins, minerals.) The fat and proteins found in milk are sensitive to chemical changes. The dish soap (a chemical) does two things in this experiment – it weakens the chemical bond that holds the milk solution and the proteins together AND it disperses the fat molecules throughout the milk. All this creates motion that is visualized with the food coloring. The food color molecules are bumped and shoved everywhere in the solution, providing us with an easy way to see what might otherwise be invisible to us.

Continue experimenting:

Will you get the same eruption of color? Why or why not?

What kind of milk produces the best swirling of color: skim, 1%, 2%, or whole milk? Why?