Black Changes Colour?

I recently purchased a bunch of science kits from Steve Spangler Science including this Rainbow Recipes kit. When our package got delivered, we couldn't wait to try out some of the experiments.

We decided to try the Is Black Really Black? experiment first. The kit included a plastic cup, pipe cleaner, black washable marker, circle shaped pieces of paper and the instructions.

You don't need the kit to do this experiment, as the supplies are mostly common household items :)

To do this experiment, take your circle paper and draw some black dots in a circle shape, about the size of a penny. Wet your pipe cleaner, take off an excess water and poke it through the centre of your paper, being careful not to get your paper wet yet. Fill your cup about half full of water. Set your circle paper on top of the cup, with the bottom of the pipe cleaner in the water. And watch what happens to your black dots :)

As the water soaks into the paper, the black dots separate into colours :)

This picture was taken after about 20 minutes.

Sammie kept wanting to try it again and with different patterns of marker. :)

After about 30 minutes

This pattern of dots turned out very pretty. It almost looks like flower petals :)

As usual, when we do experiments, we don't really talk about the science behind the experiments. We just like to have fun with them :)

If you are interested in the science behind this experiment, here is an explanation from the Steve Spangler website:

"So, is black really just black? No! There’s literally a rainbow of color hiding in just one black dot! The burst of color that you see on the filter paper proves that black is really a combination of colors. This technique of color separation is actually called chromatography, which was originally used to separate different plant pigments. The science behind the rainbow is simply this - the ink dissolves in the water (that’s why they call it water soluble) and moves in between the fibers of the paper where it is separated into bands of color. You might see as many as six or seven different circles of color."

This was a fun experiment, Sammie loved going over to the papers and checking to see what pattern was showing up and what colours she could see in them :) She was a little impatient at first, waiting to see what would happen. She is used to experiments where you get the results right away. But once she saw what was happening to her dots, she was much more interested in it.

When Maddie got home, she had to try it out too. She tried out a couple of different patterns too. I didn't get any pictures of hers though.

I think we might try this again and maybe use some different types of markers, pens and such to see what we get from them :)

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