What you need:
Cardboard, Pencil, Scissors, Food colouring, Liquid fabric Whitener (Found in general stores), Ammonia (found in the cleaning section of stores), Salt, Water, A dish.
What to do:
1. Draw two Christmas tree shapes on cardboard and cut them out.
2. Cut a slot at the top of one shape, up to its middle. Cut a slot in the second shape from the bottom to the middle. Now join both shapes using these slots so you get a tree that can stand on its own.
3. Add drops of food colouring to the edges of the tree.
4. Now, in the dish, mix one tablespoon of water, one tablespoon of salt, one tablespoon fabric whitener and half a tablespoon of ammonia.
5. Stand the tree in the middle of the dish, in the mixture. Leave it for 10 to 12 hours. You can keep monitoring it.
What happens?
The branches of your tree soon begin to look snowy. And gradually, you have a colourful, snowy tree.
Why?
First, there’s capillary action, which is the movement of a liquid against gravity, through narrow spaces. This is the same principle that allows water to be absorbed by a tree’s roots and transported to its leaves. The cardboard absorbs the solution until it is full of the liquid. Once this happens, the liquid begins to evaporate.
Ammonia evaporates more quickly than water and it acts as an accelerating agent for the evaporation. As the liquid leaves, crystals are left behind on the cardboard. These crystals are a combination of the salt and the fabric whitener. As more liquid evaporates more of these crystals are left behind and soon you have a tree!
Note that different brands of whiteners may affect your experiment differently. Be ready for some trial and error.
Picture Credit : Google
