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Little Leafin' Around

As fall is coming, my kids are asking a lot about why the leaves on the trees change color.  I asked Briana to tell me why she thinks the leaves change color.  Her answer was "The green leaves have to go because it's not their turn anymore so they jump off the trees, but some fall on our grass because of gravity. The others are less dense than the air so they fly around forever until it's there turn to get back on our trees. Then the colorful leaves get a turn and that's called Fall."  A pretty well thought out answer for a 2 year old, I think.  But unfortunately it’s not accurate. 

Sadly, that made me realize that it took my oldest less than 3 years of life to ask me a question I couldn’t answer - “Why do the leaves change color?”.  So I looked it up on http://www.na.fs.fed.us/fhp/pubs/leaves/leaves.shtm.  Basically the leaves change color because as the nighttime gets longer, less chlorophyll is produced.  The chlorophyll basically overpowers the carotenoids (that make yellows, oranges, and browns) and the anthocyanins (that make reds) so when less chlorophyll is made we get to see the other colors that lie dormant.

So I surfed the net for a while looking for an experiment to drive home the idea for the kids since the explanation was a little bit too much for them.  Sadly, most things I found required a chromatograph – which I obviously don’t have at home and I don’t think the kids would have any idea what that was or what it was doing.  I think it’s important to know what you want the kids to take away from any experiment.  Crucial really.  Like with density and gravity which the kids have a pretty good, age appropriate understanding of, what I want the kids to understand is that there are lots of things in a leaf and the green (chlorophyll if they can remember that) covers up the other colors until it goes away in winter.

So we went into the yard to pick the “perfect leaves”.  I put the leaves in a cup with some alcohol to strip the chlorophyll and I prayed since I had no idea if this would really work.  Usually I try to do all of my experiments ahead of time so I know they work before I show the kids, but hey, I was prepared to teach them about failed experiments if it bombed...that’s still teaching them something, right? J

While we waited we did leaf rubbings just to keep leaves top of mind.  Then I asked the kids what colors of leaves they think we’ll see this Fall.  They picked red, yellow, and green so we got those 3 colors of crayons. 


Since Briana is really into the steps to do things I outlined the steps just like Special Agent Oso (one of her favorite TV shows) did.  Step 1: Turn the leaves upside down so that the ribbing is on the top.  Step 2: Put a sheet of paper on them.  Step 3: Remove the paper from the crayon and use the side of the crayon to rub the paper where the leaf is.




And then we returned to our leaves soaking in a cup outside on the deck.  Boo!  They didn’t turn their fall colors, they all turned brown.   I didn’t site the webpage that suggested this experiment so as not to bash them, but it definitely didn’t turn out as expected.  That being said the leaves still changed to a different color and we talked about how the green on top comes off in Fall which is pretty close.  Then Daddy, my husband, Matt, came out and we all enjoyed a beautiful Fall day on the swingset.

Coming inside I asked Briana, “Why do the leaves change color in the Fall, do you remember?”  And she responded, “No Mommy, I don’t remember but they fall down because of gravity.  Mommy, I love when we do ‘speriments.  When can we do another ‘speriment.” 

Hey, if all the kids took away was a love of scientific experiments, I think that’s a win for now.  They have a lifetime to learn to explain the complexities in nature.

<3 Pedigreed Housewife  

Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 19, 2010 at 9:22 PM

    Good job Adia!! I'm going to have Cary do some rubbings. Looks fun.
    -Alice

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownSeptember 19, 2010 at 11:04 PM

    Great post, wifey!

    ReplyDelete

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