You will need:
- Green leaves from 3
different trees - 3 different drinking
glasses - Hot water in a large pan
- Scissors + tape
- Coffee filters
- Cling wrap or plastic
wrap - Rubbing alcohol
Figure out the colour of leaves with this simple experiment.
INSTRUCTIONS
- Collect green leaves from 3 different trees.
Make sure you keep them separate. - Tear up the leaves into small pieces and
put the different tree leaves into different drinking glasses. - Pour rubbing alcohol into each glass until you cover the leaves.
- Cover the top of the glass with cling wrap so as not to allow the alcohol to evaporate.
- Next, take a large pan of hot water and gently place all these glasses in the pan.
- Wait for 30 minutes; the alcohol would have started to turn green.
- Once the alcohol is green, remove the glasses from the hot water.
- Remove the cling wrap. Cut 3 one-inch pieces of coffee filters and using
tape, stick one end on the mouth of the glass and the
other should just be touching the alcohol
inside the glass. - Wait for another 30 minutes.
Then remove the filters.
RESULT
The alcohol and the hot water act as agents which release the green colour from the leaves. You will notice that leaves from different trees vary in colours. All do not have the same shade of green. Also over time, you might also notice other shades like orange and yellow on the filter paper. Even in Nature, these shades begin to appear on the leaves only when the chemical (known as chlorophyll) which makes it green begins to fade.