Stain the Veins

We all know that plants need water to stay alive, but what do they do with that water?

Today in Year 4 Science Club we set up an investigation to find out.

We knew that the roots of a plant soaked up the water from the ground and we thought that the water would go into the stem and up to the leaves.

This investigation proved that we were right.

What we did...

1. Carefully cut up the middle of a stick of celery (but not all the way up)
2. Fill 2 jars with water and add blue food colouring to one and red food colouring to other.
3. Put 1 part of the stick of celery into each jar and leave for a few hours.

What we saw...

• Almost straight away we could see the red colour going up the stalk of the celery.
• After a few hours the leaves had started to turn red.
• It was harder to see the blue colour (maybe because blue is similar to the green colour of the celery).
• When we pulled back the skin of the celery we could see that the veins were stained red and blue.

We are going to leave the celery in the coloured water until Monday to see what happens.