MAGIC MILK EXPERIMENT

Allison Cunningham

Materials Required: Shallow container (plate or petri dish works well) Milk (I used skim but any milk will work with a slightly different effect) Liquid food colouring (more colours = more fun!) Liquid dish soap Cotton swab (I used magic witch fingers for the entertainment value) Procedure: 1. Pour enough milk into the container to completely cover the bottom and allow it to settle (~1/4 inch). 2. Add a few drops of each of the colours of food coloring to the milk. 3. Ask students to try to make the colours move by only touching the milk in one spot with their finger (or cotton swab). Do they have the magic touch? (It's important not to stir the mix, just touch it with a finger or the tip of the cotton swab) 4. Demonstrate the magic by dipping your witch finger (or cotton swab) into soap (secretly) and then into the milk. Hold it for 10-15 seconds. 5. Notice that the food colouring streams away from the point where the soap touched the milk magic? Scientific Explanation: Liquids like water and milk have a property known as surface tension due to the cohesive forces of the liquid's molecules. This is why we see a meniscus along the edge of containers with liquid in them. The molecules in milk have a stronger attraction to each other than the container so the molecules pull away from the container into the center and create a concave meniscus. Since milk is mostly water, it has surface tension like water but milk is also made up of fat and protein molecules. Soaps are known as surfactants which means they reduce surface tension. Soap is a polar molecule with a hydrophilic head and a hydrophobic tail. The hydrophobic end is repelled by water but attracted to fat so when the soap is added to the milk mixture it moves around in search of fat molecules to attach to. As the soap molecules attach to the fat molecules they change the surface tension of the milk, lowing it in that area. Because the surrounding milk on the edge has a higher surface tension the surface is pulled to the edge away from the weaker soapy area. The food colouring moves with the surface, streaming away from the dish soap. Where This Fits Into the Ontario Science Curriculum: Gr. 8 Science Fluids Gr. 9 Applied Exploring Matter Gr. 10 Academic (SNC2D) - Chemical Reactions Gr. 10 Applied (SNC2P) - Chemical Reactions and Their Practical Application Chemistry Gr. 11 University (SCH3U) - Matter, Chemical Trends, and Chemical Bonding, Solutions and Solubility Sources: http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/milk-color-explosion http://www.nipissingu.ca/education/jeffs/4284Winter/PDFS/MagicMilk.pdf