Easy Homemade Litmus Paper
Kids Love Science!
Always curious and testing the reactions of mixing, pouring, and measuring different substances, are the busy little hands of my kids. There's no doubt your kiddos are likely the same, because as we've all experienced, kids love science!
Which is fantastic. I love how my kids want to explore the "if's" and "why's" of how things happen, and how they light up with pride when their hypotheses are correct. Their natural wonder makes our little world quite interesting, and full of constant learning, which is inspiring.
That Is A Great Thing.
Being a homeschooling family, their curiosity is what keeps me motivated. They are constantly wanting to learn, and are sponges for new information. My hope is that their curiosity will never snuff, because without it, learning slows to a crawl. So in order to keep the fire lit, I keep my little scientists exploring, creating, and testing the world around them in any which way I can.
Since I know you likely have at least one young scientist at home, here's a really simple yet intriguing project for them to get experimenting with!
Homemade Litmus Paper
What You'll Need:
Red Cabbage
3 Cups Water
Saucepan
Coffee Filters
Scissors
Parchment Paper or Paper Towels
Baking Sheet
Let's Make It.
Step 1: Add the water to the saucepan. Add 3-4 leaves of red cabbage to the water.
Step 2: Boil the cabbage down, allowing the water to turn blue. Approximately 10 minutes.
Step 3: Remove the boiled cabbage from the heat. Remove and discard the cabbage leaves, and allow the water cool.
Step 4: Cut 1 inch strips from the coffee filters.
Step 5: Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or paper towels.
Step 6: Once the water has cooled, dip the strips into the blue water. Allow each strip to absorb the blue water for at least 2 minutes.
Step 7: Once ready, remove the strips and place the strips onto the prepared baking sheet to dry.
Step 8: Once fully dry (approximately 15-20 minutes), they are ready for use!
Get Testing!
While in our lemon lesson plan, we used our litmus paper to test the acid level in lemon juice. All this test needed was a quick squeeze from a lemon to acquire enough juice to place the end of the litmus strip into.
After making their predictions as to what would happen to the strip, we placed our homemade strips into the lemon juice to test their idea. They were quickly mesmerized by the reaction, and went on to test other liquids such as soapy water, to see if the reaction would be different.
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