Teach your kids about pigments in plants and extracting them from the red cabbage leaves. We use our red cabbage juice in various science projects, such as making natural purple or blue food color, exploring Acidity and Basicity, oil and water experiments and more.
All you need is: a red cabbage, a heat-resistant bowl, hot water, funnel, ladle and a container to store your food color (we use a glass bottle).
Work together! This experiment needs an adult supervision and help.
1. Cut the cabbage leaves, you can use your hands and tear them apart, Put in a heat-resistant bowl
2. Carefully pour hot water. The red cabbage leaves contains a pigment called anthocyanin, after pouring the hot water you can almost immediately see a wonderful blue color starting to color the water, this is the pigment!
Wait at least 3 hours, the water are purple now!
3. By using a ladle and a funnel fill up your bottle with the cabbage juice
Now you have a natural purple food coloring to use in various science projects (or as a natural food coloring for food! If you use it for food use it only when it is fresh)
And here are some of the cool experiments we did:
1. Make a natural blue food color! mix your purple food color and baking soda in a
container, and see what will happen! (Hint: You should get a dark blue color)
2. Explore Acidity and Basicity Mix your purple food color with other materials and liquids, and explore their chemical reaction when they meet.
Prepare in advance 4 small clear containers, use each container for a different material or liquid: vinegar, Baking soda, dishwasher powder, lemon juice.
Important: Your parental supervision is required. It’s a fun and simple way to introduce Acidity and basicity to 5 years old, that are not exploring stuff with their taste buds.. do not taste the mixture! if your children are young, please make sure the containers are out of their reach. Dilute the materials with water (1-3 tablespoons) and mix. Fill the remaining space with your purple cabbage juice. Mix and see it happen! The Red Cabbage leaves contains a compound called anthocyanin, that can be used as a pH indicator when mixed with acids or bases. Vinegar and Lemon juice, are acidic, While baking soda and dishwasher powder are basic. Acidic solutions +your purple cabbage juice = Red / pink color basic solutions + your purple cabbage juice = Green/ blue color 3. Ocean in a bottle (oil and water experiment)
Learn together (right here) about liquids density through a simple and easy science experiment that you can reuse again and again!
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