Explore Diffusion with Miss America

What conditions affect the diffusion of a substance in water?

Shared by Girl Day Innovator: 3M

Recommended Grade: K, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th

Recommended Materials:

• An adult helper
• Two clear glasses
• Water
• Food coloring

The Challenge: Race drops of food coloring in a cup of hot water and a cup of cold water. 

Make a prediction. What might be different about the way the food coloring moves through the cold water and the hot water?

Have you ever colored a picture with marker and noticed that two touching colors begin to bleed together? In class, do you typically sit evenly spaced or all scrunched together? Although one of these refers to chemical properties and the latter social interaction, both are examples or diffusion.

 Activity Video:

Instructions and Procedures

Visit https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/gives-us/education/science-at-home/diffusion-science-experiment-for-kids/ for the full instructions and explanations.

STEM Connections

This activity is a model of how we get oxygen to all the cells in our bodies.

The food coloring mixes through the hot water faster than it mixes with the cold water. This is because in hot water, the water molecules have more energy and are moving faster than the molecules of cold water. This makes it easier for the dye to get mixed throughout the hot water. Because diffusion happens from high concentration to low concentration, the more molecules are moving, the more opportunities they have to mix together. The high energy hot water model diffusion is important because it’s how we get oxygen to all the cells in our bodies. When deoxygenated blood is in your capillaries in your lungs, the oxygen in your lungs diffuses from a higher concentration in your lungs to the lower concentration in your blood. This allows red blood cells to carry oxygen all over your body.

3M's Science at Home