Magical Growing Rabbit

For Easter my Aunt gave me a present of a 'magical growing rabbit'. You had to make the rabbit out of paper, put it in a dish and then pour a special solution into it. It looked like this.

In the morning it looked like this

The solution that I had poured in the dish had been absorbed by the paper. The chemical in the solution had then reacted with oxygen in the air so that it formed crystals - making the rabbit look very fluffy!

pH test

Yesterday I had red cabbage for dinner. After cooking it, I saved some of the water.

As you can see it's a lovely purple colour. This can be used to test the pH of a material. pH is a numerical scale to measure whether something is acid or alkaline. First I mixed it with vinegar - which is acidic - and washing up liquid - which is alkaline - to find out what colour it would go.

The vinegar went a dark pink colour.

 The washing up when a greeny-blue colour.

So acidic things go dark pink when mixed with cabbage juice and alkali things go greeny-blue. If it stays purple it is neutral - not really acid or alkali. I tested a few other things in my kitchen.

So next time to have to eat red cabbage you can try this yourself. You can also use it to test the pH of the soil in your garden. Some plants grow better in either acid or alkali soils.