Celery and Colored Water

Here's an interesting science experiment to do with your kids.  Take a couple of pieces of celery and break them in half.  Take several glasses/jars and fill them with water and a food coloring of your choices.  Take the celery and place it vertically into the water and let it sit for several hours to a day.  The water is drawn up the celery and can be observed if the water is colored.  Here's a piece of celery we stuck in blue colored water.

Very cool!  My daughters and I took this experiment one step further and asked ourselves, what happens if the celery is placed in colored salt water?  Will the salt make a difference?  Let's see.

Nope...nothing!  No colored celery.  It appears that salt water made a big difference in this experiment.  In addition, the rigidity of the celery differed.  The celery in the tap water was still hard and firm.  The celery in the salt water limped and could bend very easily.  It was cool seeing the expressions on my daughters' faces when they noticed the difference in the celery.  

Give it a shot!