Traveling With Capillary Action

In science class, second grade is learning about chromatography and capillary action. Capillary action is the movement of a liquid through or along another material against an opposing force, such as gravity. Our students are learning about various ways of how capillary action occurs in nature and how chromatography is used in careers such as the fashion industry, medicine, and forensic science.

So far, we have examined the length of time it takes for capillary action to occur. We used the real life example of not rolling up our sleeves when washing our hands to explain how quickly the water is able to move through materials. We then set up an experiment using Skittles to explore how different colors in dyes separate as capillary action occurs.

We will move on to explore how using color separation can help solve mysteries and then we will solve our own mystery using capillary action. We will conclude by setting up an experiment to see how capillary action happens in flowers. Finally we will use our flowers to write a how and why tale about what happened to the flower.