Color Changing Flower Experiment

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This simple science activity is a great way to WOW your kids! This color-changing flower experiment is an easy way to explore how plants absorb water. And plus, you create beautiful rainbow-colored flowers during it!

Kids will love checking in on this science experiment throughout the day to see how the petals of the flowers have changed. It’s a little magical.

Head out to the garden, or local flower shop, and grab some white flowers (carnations work great, daisies do too). And grab some clear jars or drinking glasses, water, and some food coloring of your choice.

Have your child fill the jars with water. Add in 10-15 drops of food coloring in each jar and stir it so it’s mixed.

Trim the stems of the flower so its a fresh cut and so they fit nicely in the jar like you would with a vase. Place one flower in each jar.

Ask your kids what they think is going to happen.

Check in on the flowers throughout the day, every couple of hours. Take photos of the progress, and write down what they observe.

It may take a couple of days for the full effect of the flowers absorbing the colored water. If you’re impatient, you can try carefully splitting the stem in half before placing it in the water. This can help the water move up the stem faster.

Try the walking water experiment next!

Want to make it different the next time you do it?

Split a flower’s stem in half and put half in one color jar and the other half in another. Can you make the flower absorb both colors? What happens? Do the colors mix? Or do they color the flower half and half?

Or try different types of white flowers. Try carnations, daisies, and baby’s breath. How do they absorb differently? Is one faster than another? Does one take on the color better? Experiment to find out!

This is a fun introduction to how flowers and plants absorb water. You can look up the process, the correct terms, and their definitions to understand it more to make it a full science lesson. Or just be amazed at the magical process.

A fun science experiment, but also a great opportunity for kids to practice making predictions (isn’t this called a hypothesis? a scientific thing to do!), observe the changes (the next step in the scientific process?), and it just may trigger some eagerness to learn about how plants grow and absorb their water through the ground.