Did you know that we can make water crawl against gravity without even touching it? Read on to learn more on how to make a fun rainbow walking water DIY activity with teacher Taylor Blair. 

Rainbow Walking Water DIY Activity: What You Need 

Find out the materials and you need and steps for the Rainbow Walking Water DIY activity from teacher Taylor Blair with Generation Genius.

Is it magic or is it science? 

Today we’re testing if colors can actually crawl from cup to cup with nothing but water and paper towels or napkins. First, let’s set up.

•Six clear cups
•Food coloring
•Paper towels or napkins
•Water 

Place the cups in a circle and fill every other cup with water. Pick a color for each cup. Put a few drops of color in each cup. Now, go ahead and grab your paper towel or napkin, and fold it a long way. Make sure you have a crease in the napkin. 

Next, we’re going to stick one end in the colored water cup and blank, and then put the next one in the empty cup. It should resemble a chain. So, the water is starting to travel up the paper towel against gravity and into the following cups.



The Science Behind Walking Water

Capillary action is one of the concepts that kids learn about in the Rainbow Walking Water DIY Activity.

How is it moving without us touching it? 

No, it’s not magic. It’s science, and it’s called capillary action. Capillary action is how water moves through tiny spaces.

Consider the following: 

  1. Water molecules are polar, and they love to stick together. This is called cohesion. Basically, picture a mama duck and all the little ducklings that follow right behind. So they stick together and follow each other. 
  2. Next, because they are actually moving up, this is due to adhesion. Adhesion means there’s like tiny little gaps in fibers in between the napkin itself. That is like the little paths that they’re moving along. Similar to, imagine if I have this little straw.

This little straw has a little tube, and the water molecules are able to stick together and move up this straw. They’re beating gravity. Gravity is still trying to push down through the straw, but there’s not much space.

So the water molecules and adhesion and capillary action wins. This is similar to our paper towels and napkins because the little fiber pathways have really small gaps. However, say the gap was bigger, like this big straw that we were working with.

Now, if gravity is trying to push down and the water molecules are trying to push up, gravity is going to win in this case. So capillary action will not take place. These napkins have small fibers with small gaps that the water can adhere to and move through due to capillary action.

Rainbow Walking Water DIY Activity: Insights 

With just a few simple steps, your students can learn about capillary action, water movement, and color mixing from teacher Taylor Blair, and make a Rainbow Walk in Water!

As you continue with this project, the colors are making moves. You can literally watch the rainbow colors crawl. 

Around the 25-45 minute mark, you may start to see colors come together. For example, the blue and the yellow came together and made green. Also, the red and the blue make the purple. And then the red and yellow make orange. Because of this, the once empty cups now have their own new color. 

This is just capillary action doing its job. Science is happening right in front of us everywhere. You just gotta look for it. 

For more activities, check out Ice Melt Race DIY Activity