Disappearing Colors Experiment

My oldest daughter has been wanting to do magic lately.  We went to the library last week and she got a magic book and I found this cool It's Not Magic, It's Science! book.  It is a really cool book and lists tons of experiments that look like magic but are really just science.

And since my oldest is into magic I tought we would have to try a few of these experiments out.  This disappearing colors is one that I thought the girls would think was really cool.  They got to sit and watch as the color in the glass disappeared.

They each picked a color to use for the experiment it ended up being blue and green (you can use any color).  The first thing the girls noticed was that the green glass turned blue.  So we got to turn this into a color mixing lesson too.  We talked about how yellow and blue make green and that the yellow was the first color in the glass to disappear which left only the blue.  I think this would be fun to do with some other colors and see what colors disappear first and what color is left in the glass.

What is happening with this experiment? The bleach is an oxidizer which reacts with the food color, changing the color molecules.   The pigment molecules actually remain but the shapes are changed and they can no longer reflect the light, so it looses it color as a result.

If you like this experiment don't forget to check out all our other Science Experiments, to have more fun with Science!  

Supplies
Glass
Water
Food Color
Bleach
Eye Dropper

Directions

 Add one drop of food color to your glass (any color will work)

 Use your eye droppers to add some bleach to the glass

 Observe what the bleach does.  

(here you see it turned the green water blue)

 Add more bleach if needed and watch as the colors in the glass begin to fade

Observe the water in the glass return to clear