Can Water Walk?

Can water walk? That is an interesting question for sure and one that would be great to pose to your children. And, it is one that can be answered by a scientific experiment that lends itself to having your children come up with a hypothesis or a "guess" as to what will happen and if water can walk. Part of the results will also remind them about the colors in the rainbow from the July 20th post. As you set up the experiment, let your children participate as much as possible, even if it slows things down. Also, let them dictate notes to you about what they observe and any times or measurements they want to remember.

SUPPLIES:
7 clear cups, glasses, or small mason jars
Red, yellow, and blue food coloring
Paper towels
Water
Paper for note keeping
          
TO DO FOR EXPERIMENT:

• Place the seven cups in a row on a counter.
• Pour water in the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th cup. Fill at least ¾ full.
• Add 5 drops of red food coloring to the 1st and the 7th cup.
• Add 5 drops of yellow food coloring to the 3rd cup.
• Add 5 drops of blue food coloring to the 5th cup.
• Take a half sheet of paper towel (or one of the half size). Fold it in half lengthwise and then in half lengthwise again. Trim off about 1 ½ inches. Keeping the length of the paper towel short will make the water "walk" more quickly. Repeat this process with 5 more half sheets of paper towel.         

               

• Place one half the first folded paper towel in cup 1 and place the other half in cup 2. With the remains folded paper towel pieces, repeat this process from cup 2 to 3, cup 3 to 4, cup 4 to 5, cup 5 to 6, and cup 6 to 7. All cups will be connected to both adjacent cups by a paper towel.                             
• Notice what the cups, the colored water, and paper towels look like now and make notes.
• Keep watching because you should quickly start to see the water "walking" up the paper towels and talk about what is beginning to happen. Depending on your child's interest in keeping records, make some notes as changes occur as to how long, color movement.
• Leave the experiment and return periodically. You will continue to see the water "walking" and eventually the paper towels will have changed colors completely. You can talk about the colors of the rainbow (ROYGBIV) and they are all represented on the towels. Have your children also look in all the cups to see how much water is in each one. Remind them there was no water to begin with in cups 2, 4, and 6. They will be surprised to see that the water did indeed "walk!"
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