Finding comfort in swirls of milk

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Tuesday is the day we do Science.
In this case, Earth Science.  This is Jonathan's experiment and his write up.  I know I usually include recipes, but he asked me to share it, so I'm going to.
Here's an example of what 6th grade Science looks like in the Darby Home School...

What I used:

  • 1 cup of milk
  • red food coloring
  • blue food coloring
  • shallow bowl
  • vegetable oil

What I did:

I poured the milk into the bowl and added the red and blue food coloring around the bowl.  I poured a little bit of vegetable oil into the center.

What happened:

Slowly, the red and blue food coloring started to spin away from the sides of the bowl and pulled toward the middle creating a swirl pattern.

What I learned:

I learned that the oil, mixing with the fat in the milk created a current on the surface of the milk that was marked by the food coloring.   This current spiraled in a counter-clockwise direction due to circular motion that replicates the rotation of the Earth in the Northern Hemisphere or the Coriolis Effect.

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What Mom learned:

No matter how out of control my small life sometimes feels, there is Divine Order in the universe, the Earth continues to spin on its axis,  God is on His Throne and Al Gore is a Great Big Idiot.

I didn't say it was all going to be pretty. ;-)