Green Thumb - Changing the Colour of Plants!

What To Do

Set-Up (15 min.)

• Activity 1: Put 10 white flowers, 10 plastic cups, and 30 leaves on the desk.
• Activity 2: Set up hot plate and pot with 1000mL of water in it. Put about 250g of Arm and Hammer Washing Soda into the pot and keep it warm.
• Activity 2: Put three plastic dishes with water and 4-5 drops of three different colour in it on the desk.

Activity 1: Changing a plants colour (20 min.)

1. Let students form groups of 3 or 4. Better to move the desks and put them together, so students can see each another.
2. One student from each group will come out and get one white flower and one plastic cup.
3. Go to each group and pour water up to half of plastic cup.
4. Go to each group and let them decide which colour of flower they want. Put 4-5 drops of food colouring that they choose into the plastic cup.
5. Let students to put the white flower into the plastic cup.
6. Place the plastic cup in the middle of the group or somewhere that is safe.
7. While the flowers are changing the colour, go to activity 2.

Activity 2: Tie-dye a leaf! (45 min.)

1. Boil the solution from set-up step 2.
2. While boiling the solution, let one student from each group come out and get leaves.
3. Talk about the safety precautions of using a hot plate.
4. Let each group come up to the main station with their leaves and put them in the pot.
5. Leave the leaves in the solution until their colour changes from green to dark brown.
6. Use tongs to put a leaf from step 5 onto a plate. Get the students to take a toothbrush and their leaf back to their desk.
7. Repeat step 4 - step 6 with other groups.
8. When students get back their leaves, they can lightly brush off the leaf coat by using a toothbrush.
9. After step 8, students can come out to the front with their leaf and choose the color they want to have.
10. Dip his/her leaf into the food coloring and put back onto the glass plate by using tongs.
11. Let it dry for few minutes.
12. Laminate the leaf (optional).