Pretty Water Lily Experiment

We are still working with our Giant Book of Science Experiments that we bought for $1. An amazing deal! This is the same book that we used for the Easy Static Electricity Experiment.

This experiment does not need many materials. The items we used include: a pencil, scissors, a couple of pieces of construction paper, and a large measuring cup filled with water.

A folded flower.

Opening due to capillary action.

First, we filled our measuring cup with water. We did not fill it all the way, just put in a healthy amount. Then, we drew the outline of our flowers on the construction paper. Basically, you draw flowers with triangle petals that will fold in. You can use an octagon shape as your base. We free handed our flowers, so they weren't perfect. However, they worked just fine!

Once you have cut out your flower, you will need to fold in your petals. Since our petals did not stay down after the folding, we put our flowers under a book for a few minutes.

Next, we placed our flowers into the water. The petals opened slowly as the paper's capillary tubes filled with water. Pretty!

After, we dried out our flowers to reuse them in another project. We also used the water to water plants in an effort to not waste.

Our flower has opened!

This experiment was a neat little project involving capillary action. You can find a nice explanation of capillary action and evidence of it around us on the US Geological Survey website.

This is really something that is easy to pull out of your hat of tricks when you need to entertain little ones on a rainy day!