The following experiment is a fun and easy way to see how water and nutrients travel up the stem using xylem within the plant
These are the materials needed to view xylem in action:
- 2 liter bottle
- 2 plastic cups
- 1 White Carnation with long stem
- Water
- Food Coloring (Whatever colors you wish, we chose red and blue)
- Scissors (Adult needed)
Methods:
Fill both of the cups with water and add about four or five drops of food coloring in to each of the cups. tablespoons of salt to one of the dishes. Using the scissors have a parent cut stem of the flower in half along the length of the flower until about half way up the stem. HAVE AN ADULT HELP YOU!
Now place each side of the stem into one of the cups
Let the flower sit in the water for around 48 hours
After a few days you should clearly be able to see a color
change in your flower. In the picture above you can see the
top right part is nice and red while the bottom left of our
flower in blue. This is the result of different parts of
the stem up taking the different colors of water. You can
experiment with all sorts of of food colors to make
whatever color flower you wish. Below are some of the
flowers we made.
