We had fun with this experiment. It was very cool to watch the colours change! I used food coloring and cabbage leaves to show the kids how plants absorb water (and nutrients) up through their stems. We also did this experiment with white flowers too!
To conduct your own science experiment, you will need:
Cabbage leaves – we used Wombok (chinese cabbage) and again, you can do this with flowers also
Food colouring
Water
Jars
First you will need to add some water to each jar.
Then add a different coloured food dye to each jar…we used about 10 drops per jar to make sure the water was nice and vibrant!
This is my very cute science lab assistant : )
Then we added a separate cabbage leaf/flower to each jar. The baby food jars were great for the flowers, but we found we needed a bigger glass for the wombok.
So you can see the above two images are the ‘before’ shots and below are ‘afters’! Leave your cabbage/flowers over night to achieve the full effect of this experiment.
and the cabbage….
Such amazing results! Nature is a wonderful thing! Master 4 thought this was fantastic! We hope your kiddies do too!
You may also like some of our other Fun Science Ideas:
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Thank you for sharing our experiment! I’m sure it will inspire a lot of other like minded Mumma’s to do it with their kids! We love to make Science FUN!
Dyed cabbage leaves in pretty glasses make a gorgeous “center piece” down the center of the table. Grandkids were so proud of their contribution and learned something, too.
Wow that looks looks like fun, my son loves experiments and will be trying this sometime today, he will love the cabbage idea, just a question is the cabbage edible x
It can take up to two weeks
How do you keep the cabbage or flowers from wilting over the course of 2 weeks? We have a Learning Resources science kit, and it suggested trying the same thing with celery stalks…however, it didn’t really work for us. The stalk wilted before much water got absorbed.
Hi Gina, you will only need to keep your flowers/cabbage in the solution over night for these results : ) We tried celery stalks too but found the cabbage & flowers to be the best. Jenni x
Hi, I tried this with cabbage and I let it sit overnight. It did not work for me, my cabbage just wilted. How did you get yours so vibrant looking? Thanks
Love this idea. We tried it with lettuce though and it didn’t work. Will give another go with flowers and cabbage x
My daughter did this as a science fair project one year. We placed flowers in different areas to see if temperature affected they way they absorbed the water. She then documented her results over the course of a week. It was great and she was able to learn quite a bit about plants.
thanks for this wonderful idea.!!!!
I found there is also The TickleMe Plant Book available for the more curious minds 🙂
Another fun experiment is to grow a TickleMe Plant which closes its leaves when tickled. Found online
awesome
Such a great, informative, and fun experiment for kids! I look forward to doing this with my Kindergartners!
Wow fun experiment. Can’t wait to do it with my girls.
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its awesome
Will the colour absorb overnight?
What are the best white flowers to use?
Thanks
Hi Lorna, yes they will definitely absorb over night. White roses are great, but any white flowers will work fine! Let us know how you go! Jen x
I’m being asked for an activity based on cells of plants. Are the cells of the plant absorbing the dye or is it the “veins?”
Can u eat the cabbage after its colored?
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This is an awesome way for students to see how plants absorb water! Using the different colors all is such a great idea and not very expensive! Thank you for sharing!!!
How long does it take to get to changing cabbage?
You can start seeing it appear after a few hours, but over night is best 🙂 Jen x
I’m in 11th grade now and me and my partner are going to try this experiment. Just a question, is the cabbage edible after the experiment? My classmates might ask and I don’t know what to answer. Hope for your reply asap.
I was planning on using celery until I saw your cabbage photos. I bought Napa Cabbage, thinking that was what I was seeing in the photo…then I read and learned it was Wombok cabbage. I hope the Napa Cabbage works just as well. No school tomorrow as we are expecting a heavy snow storm, we’ll try it out and see what happens. I hope it works and looks as pretty!
Thank you for sharing. I did this wonderful experiment that word so well with my children. I used some faded naba cabbage and I was surprised to see the whole cabbage colored in an hour or two. I am going to try with the flowers now.