Celery Experiment

You have seen this experiment before:  Place celery in colored water to see how celery draws water from its bass to the roots.  I have been wanting to do this with my children for some time, but it seems like we always eat the celery before we get around to doing it.  Last time I prepared ants on a log, I realized that the center of the celery would be perfect for the experiment.  We chose red, but in the future I will use blue because the red mostly makes the leaves look brown, but blue has more prominent results.

Using the base of the celery, and not just individual stalks was really interesting.  The celery drinks from the outside edge only, and not from the center.  I didn't know that, but it makes a lot of sense, because that is where the rain water would most likely be.  Perhaps this is also why the center stalks in celery are more yellow and the outside are more green, the outside stalks get more water.  Maybe we will find out in a future experiment. 

We also cut the stalks and showed the colored strands where the water had traveled to the leaves.  My children loved this experiment.