Science Fair Projects on Surface Tension

Question: Can I make food coloring swirl in milk?

Student: Landon
Grade 2
South Dakota, USA

Hypothesis: I think the dishsoap will break up the colors in mild of the molecules (little bits) in food coloring.

Materials Used:

Method

• I poured 2% mile on one plate and 1% milk on the other plate.

• I added one drop each of red, green, yellow, blue food coloring - separating thme about 1/4 a clock a part on a paper plate.

• I touched the tip of a Q-tip swab in the dishsoap.

• I then touched the colored part of the milk. The color swirled in a pretty design.

Conclusion: Milk IS mostly water, but it contains other materials like minerals. When I added soap it changed the milk solution. Molecules moved everywhere. Liquid soap wrecked the surface tension.

In 10 minutes you can do science fair projects on surface tension and how water supports lightweight particles.

Use bubbles to display surface tension while you create your own experiments with the bubble fluid recipe with household soap.