- Like
- Digg
- Del
- Tumblr
- VKontakte
- Buffer
- Love This
- Odnoklassniki
- Meneame
- Blogger
- Amazon
- Yahoo Mail
- Gmail
- AOL
- Newsvine
- HackerNews
- Evernote
- MySpace
- Mail.ru
- Viadeo
- Line
- Comments
- Yummly
- SMS
- Viber
- Telegram
- Subscribe
- Skype
- Facebook Messenger
- Kakao
- LiveJournal
- Yammer
- Edgar
- Fintel
- Mix
- Instapaper
- Copy Link
I am SO excited to be starting back up with Science Sunday. This really has been a favorite post for our whole family ~ the kids enjoy the experiments we’re doing very much, and I enjoy sharing them!! Besides, an excuse to take pictures {or use the cute new Science Sunday button} is always good!
This week’s experiment is pretty basic, but we had to do the celery stalk at SOME point, didn’t we? That’s just one of those standard science experiments that is begging to be done!! We did mix it up a little bit, but here’s a look at what we did.
Question of the Week…What will happen to a stalk of celery after three hours if it is put in a cup of water {one with sugar, one with salt, one with baking soda, and one with just water}?
Items we used for this experiment:
~ celery
~ 4 cups half filled with water
~ baking soda, salt, and sugar
~ food coloring
~ water
Predictions…
Each of the kids made a prediction about the 4 different stalks of celery and types of water ~ would the additions to the water make a difference in the coloring of the celery stalk after 3 hours or would they all be the same? Would they wilt, grow leaves, change colors, or do nothing?
The Experiment and Results…
Although the experiment didn’t call for all the extra ingredients {sugar, baking soda, and salt}, we wanted to see if there would be any difference in how fast the coloring would travel up the stalk of celery…or if it would even travel up if those ingredients were even added.
We added one tablespoon of each of the ingredients to a different glass of water, labeled them, stuck the celery in the jars and then realized we needed to chop off a bit of the top and bottom to make sure it was ‘fresh’ and the water could travel if needed.
After three hours of {not-so} patiently waiting, here is how each of our celery stalks looked {pictures are before and after}:
Celery in baking soda water w/coloring
Celery in salt water w/coloring
Celery in sugar water w/coloring
Celery in plain water w/coloring
The baking soda celery stalk had only ONE tube that showed the red food coloring. The salt celery stalk had NO tubes showing the coloring. The sugar celery stalk was the most permeated with color and the water celery stalk was also very color permeated.
The Nutshell Reason…
Plants use capillary action to pull water and nutrients from their roots up through the plant. Capillary action is the movement of water up narrow tubes {like those in celery plants}. The water travels up through the tubes via cohesion and adhesion. The adhesion is between the water molecules and the sides of the celery’s tubes. The cohesion is between the water molecules and the water molecules themselves. When the force of adhesion is greater than the force of the cohesion, fluids will rise ~ so the liquid will then rise up into the tubes of the celery.
Resource: How to Do Science Experiments with Children is available from Amazon and you can also check it out {and do some of the experiments} using Google Docs! The experiments use easy-to-find objects and also include record sheets for kids to fill out with their predictions and experiment results. Each experiment also includes teaching tips and explanations…which are rather handy! :)
Don’t forget to check out some other great science ideas at Science Sunday hosted by Ticia at Adventures in Mommydom.
The printables shared on this site are FREE of charge unless otherwise noted, and you are welcome to download them for your personal and/or classroom use only. However, free or purchased printables are NOT to be reproduced, hosted, sold, shared, or stored on any other website or electronic retrieval system (such as Scribd or Google docs). My printables are copyright protected and I appreciate your help in keeping them that way.
If you download and use some of my printables and then blog about them, please provide a link back to my blog and let me know - I'd love to see how you are using them! Please be sure to link to the blog post or web page and not directly to the file itself. Thank you!
Fun! You’re right, that is the obligatory experiment isn’t it? Kind of like the baking soda volcano. :) I suppose we’ll be doing this soon! :)
Neat experiment! I have this book and we have yet to pull it out. The kids are wanting to do things like this too – guess that means I should…hmmmm where o’where is the time!!!
Hugs and love!
Jill
PS Your children are so beautiful!!!
Thanks for giving me an idea for this week! My daughter (who has been homeschooled now for a little over a year) is almost ten and has never done this…. sad, huh? I just happen to have celery waiting to be used from a pot roast, too. ;-)
it was quick and easy too!!! have fun experimenting!
thanks for the idea. will have to try that this week too. btw- i think there is a typo in your prediction. “Question of the Week…What will happen to a stalk of celery after one house if it is put in a cup of water…”
ack! Thanks!! I meant one hour…and then we changed it to three hours!
off to fix it!
This is a wonderful variation to the plain-water experiment. I love it!
We did this about 2 weeks ago and it was a hit! The kids woke up every day and went straight to the celery to see what was happening.
Great post. Great blog! Glad I found you!
Cheers!
I like the addition of the different variations of water to this experiment. Very interesting.
water just seemed too boring ~ had to spice it up a bit!
I like your additions to the experiment. Great pictures, too :)
Well I can see I need to add celery to this week’s shopping list.
Kathi Still trying to figure out science for my 3rd grader.
This is definitely a staple experiment in our home too. We just did it last week and I’m about to post the photos. I love your variation on it!
How fun! We are going to have to do that one!
We just did this experiment last week-without the extras. We had lots of leaves on our celery and used blue food dye. After a couple days, the leaves on the celery were bright blue. My three year old thought it was great!
Neat twist to the classic. :-)
Discus working yet?
are you getting this reply?
I didn’t get it. :-/
Never thought of doing this experiment with all the extra variables. Very nice.
Looks LIke a fun project can’t wait to get to do things like this w/ my little ones.
that book has been a great resource for me {especially when my mommy brain is really tired}
We did this one using flowers when my oldest was younger- need to do it again with the two younger ones- thanks for the reminder & we will definately add the twist w/ salt & sugar!