"Milking" Science for All It's Worth!!

What a fun time we are having in science this week! On Monday, we talked about how discoveries are made through asking questions.  Our students had fun generating questions about certain wonderings they had.  "Why do people hiccup?"  "Why does it rain?" "Why do tears taste salty?"

Today, I thought it would be fun to do a simple (BUT TIME-CONSUMING) experiment.  First, I showed the students a set of materials.

Then, the students had to predict what we would be doing with this set of materials.  Some predictions included making volcanoes, making soup (we read Stone Soup  earlier that morning), dying milk colors.  

We poured in a little milk into a bowl.  I then went around and dropped a few tiny drops of food coloring into each bowl.  The students noticed that the drops did not do much more that create large rings.  They then had to ask the following question:  What will happen when we dip a little dish soap into the food coloring?  A lot of interesting ideas were discussed.  Would the milk explode?? Turn into a volcano?? Or would the milk turn different colors??  The kiddos loved discovering the result!!