fbpx Skip to main content

Virtual Science Fair

View All Activities

Underwater Fireworks

Have science fun as a family! Complete activities with parental supervision.

Materials:
  • A clear glass or jar
  • A small cup
  • Something to stir with (spoon, stick, etc)
  • Food coloring
  • Vegetable oil
  • Water
Procedure
  1. Add the vegetable oil to the small cup, filling it about 3/4 full.
  2. Add drops of the food coloring to the oil. What do you notice? Water and oil do not mix, so when you add the water-based food coloring, it doesn’t mix!
  3. With your spoon or stick, stir the food coloring. Take a close look—the little bits of food coloring look like their floating, or suspended, in the oil.
  4. Gently pour the oil mixture into the water. Notice how it doesn’t mix with the water and is actually floating on top of the water!
  5. Sit back and watch the fun! As the drops of food coloring sink and fall out of the oil, they pass into the water! So satisfying!
  6. Be sure to take a picture or video to share in the Facebook comments on the Buffalo Museum of Science or Tifft Nature Preserve pages!

What’s it all about?

Food coloring is made mostly of water, so it will dissolve, or break down, in water—but not oil.

You might also notice that the oil sits on top of the water. This is because oil is less dense than water. Density is a property of matter that describes how much stuff (or mass) is smushed into an area (volume). So, water has more stuff, or molecules, stuffed into it than oil does, making it heavier than the oil.

Because the food coloring is made of water, it is more dense than oil too! So, it will sink through the oil and eventually combine with the water.

Try It!
  • Try using just three colors of food dye: red, yellow and blue. When the colors mix in the water, what other colors do you see?

More Great Virtual Science Fair Activities

  • Float Your Boat

    Engineers apply science and math to solve problems and change our world. But how do engineers solve problems? It all starts with a question. Open Activity

  • Natural Dyes

    We are as sad about canceling Tifft's Spring Egg-stravaganza as you are, so we decided to share some of our natural dye secrets with you to do at home!Open Activity

  • Rain Gauge

    As the saying goes, “April showers bring May flowers”. So how much rain exactly does the 3rd cloudiest city in the United States get? Find out by building your very own rain gauge in our next Virtual Science Fair activity.Open Activity

  • Balancing Forces

    Everything has a center of gravity—a point where the weight is evenly distributed. Find a good balance in this Virtual Science Fair activity. Open Activity

  • Cartesian Divers

    This experiment is all about two science concepts- buoyancy and density. Open Activity