Drink Like a Thorny Devil
Help your child investigate capillary action, the method thorny devils use to drink water.
Before You Play
Before you learn about capillary action, talk to your child about thorny devils. These lizards live in an environment with very little water! They need to take advantage of all the water they can—like rain water, standing water, soil moisture, and dew. They do this by using the grooves on their skin to channel water to their mouths through capillary action! The rain water and dew that falls on their back is collected and channeled towards their mouths.
Materials
Directions
Have your child twist the paper towel until it is a long tight rope.
Add a few drops of food coloring to the water. Then pour the colored water into one of the 2 glasses for each group.
Place one end of the paper towel in the water and the other end in the empty glass.
Encourage your child to make observations and record her findings. You and your child should see their paper towel starting to get wet, and because the water is colored, you can observe it moving up the paper towel. After a few minutes you will see that some water has started to pool in the glass that was empty! This process is called capillary action; the water uses this process to move along the tiny gaps in the fibre of the paper towels. This is the same process that can be seen in plants as water moves through the stem.
Science