Color-Changing Water

This Color-Changing Water is a super easy STEM activity with household materials. Mixing two colors together to make a different color has a magic-like effect, especially for little kids. 

Age: 3+          Time: <10min

 Safety 

1. Be careful with the fragile glass.

2. Adult supervision.

 Materials List 

• Transparent bowl
• Glass jar
• Water
• Food coloring
• Glass rod

 Instruction 

Step 1/3 – Add drops blue food coloring to a glass of water, add yellow to the other glass. Stir them separately up.

Step 2/3 – Pour blue water to the bowl about 3/4 full.

Step 3/3 – Put the glass jar in the center of the bowl and add yellow water to the glass. Observe the color through the bowl.

 Scientific Description 

All the colors we see are compounded by three basic colors, yellow, blue, and red. When you look through two colors, the colors “mix” together to create a new color. In this experiment， when we looked through the bowl, two colors, yellow and blue, combined into a new color, green.

 Extensions 

1. Can other colors mix together into a new color?
2. What color can you see when you replace the green water with a solid green objective?