How to Create Color-Changing Milk

Did you know fat is a primary ingredient in milk? Follow along with this video from ABC11 Science Club to discover more!

How does this experiment work?

Milk is mostly water, but contains proteins and fat. Dish soap is a surfactant, an agent that lowers the surface tension of a substance to allow easier spreading. It's bipolar, polar at one end and non-polar at the other end. Touching it to the milk weakens the chemical bonds that hold the proteins and fats in the solution, causing the fat and protein molecules to twist and bend as the soap molecules race to join up with them. The food coloring, sitting on top due to a lower density, is bounced around because the invisible reaction.

Click here to download a PDF of the instructions for this experiment to print and recreate at home!

Find us at Facebook.com/abc11scienceclub to share photos and videos of your color-changing milk! Also, be sure to tune in to ABC11 Science Club with BASF every Wednesday at 4:28 PM!