Magic Milk

Magic Milk!

Ever wanted to feel like you’re magic? This quick and interesting DIY might help.
 

Materials:

• A bowl
• Full cream milk
• Dishwashing detergent
• Food colouring
• Eye dropper
• Toothpick or cotton bud

What to do:

1. Fill up your bowl with milk.
2. Use your eye dropper to put some drops of food colouring in your milk. The more colours, the better!
3. HANDY HINT - Try to keep your bowl as still as possible. You can ruin the experiment if you bump it too early!
4. Predict: What do you think will happen when we add the detergent to the milk?
5. Watch what happens when you put a drop of detergent into your milk. (You could also dip a cotton tip or a toothpick into the detergent). Your milk should start swirling around creating some cool coloured effects! Try blowing gently into your coloured milky mixture. What happens?
6. Hypothesise: Have a think… Why does the milk start moving?

 

What’s going on?

This classic experiment gets some amazing results! When the detergent is added to the milk, it causes a chemical reaction! The detergent reacts with the fats and proteins inside the milk and creates little moving currents. These moving currents then drag the food colouring around in a swirly, circular motion. The food colouring helps us observe a phenomena that is typically not visible to us.

Want to immerse yourself in science these school holidays? Visit our friends over at Science Space - the home to Australia's most digitally advanced Planetarium, PLUS over 90 interactive exhibits and so much more! Bookings are essential.