Food Coloring Experiment | How Can I Make Underwater Fireworks

The word fireworks is often tagged with another word, ‘caution’. Yes, it is dangerous for kids to handle fireworks. But in this food coloring experiment, we are going to see something similar to a firework, but which does not require any caution. All kids can create this firework, regardless of their age. This simple aquatic fireworks experiment will help kids to understand the concept of density in the simplest manner.

Materials required

Oil – 1 tablespoon
Food color – 1 teaspoon (any color)
Small cup – 1
Tall transparent glass jar – 1
Small spoon – 1
Water – Enough to fill the jar

Steps to follow

1. Pour the oil into the cup.
2. Add few drops of the food color to the oil in the cup. Stir the oil and food color using the spoon. Break the big drops of food color into smaller drops, but don’t mix thoroughly.
3. Fill water in the glass jar. Do not fill it to the brim. There has to be some space on top.
4. Now add the mixture of food color and oil to the glass jar.
5. Make sure that the mixture is added slowly.
6. Wait for a few seconds. What do we see?
7. Oil remains on top. But food color droplets sink to the bottom of the jar.
8. As each droplet sinks, it expands to create an underwater firework effect.

What we learn

This underwater magic explains how objects with different density behave differently. When food color is mixed with oil, it does not dissolve. By stirring with spoon, we break down the big drops of color into smaller drops. Once this mixture is poured into water, the story changes entirely.

As we all know, oil and water will not mix. Oil is less dense than water, so it floats over the water. But this is not the case with food color. It is denser than oil and water. So it detaches from oil and sinks to the bottom of water.

Food color is soluble in water. So the color droplets expand, till they completely dissolve in water. This creates the effect of a tiny underwater firework. After a while, we will have colored water in the jar. So observe carefully for the first few minutes after adding the mixture, or you miss the magic.

Explore our Experiments section for more interesting experiments.

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