{"id":1915,"date":"2026-04-10T08:15:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T05:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.edu.turku.fi\/scienceed\/?p=1915"},"modified":"2026-04-10T08:15:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T05:15:30","slug":"floating-flowers-and-surface-tension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.edu.turku.fi\/scienceed\/2026\/04\/10\/floating-flowers-and-surface-tension\/","title":{"rendered":"Floating flowers and surface tension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>What have you seen floating or jumping on the surface of the water? <\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Step 1 Materials<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Paper<\/li>\n<li>Pens<\/li>\n<li>Scissors<\/li>\n<li>A large flat container<\/li>\n<li>Water<\/li>\n<li>Wool yarn<\/li>\n<li>Soap<\/li>\n<li>Two plastic cups<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Step 2 Implementation<\/h2>\n<p>Let&#8217;s start by preparing the flowers.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Draw a flower on a piece of paper with a middle part larger than the petals.<\/li>\n<li>Cut out the flower from the paper. The flower can be decorated with crayons.<\/li>\n<li>Fold the flower petals inwards in order.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Think about:<\/strong> Will the flower float in the water.<\/li>\n<li>Place the flower into the water.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Think about:<\/strong> Why are the flowers opening up in the water?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Step 3: Why<\/h2>\n<p>The flower opening is a capillary effect. The structure of the paper has small tubes through which water can penetrate to travel upwards. This makes the flowers open the petals.<\/p>\n<h2>Step 4 Implementation<\/h2>\n<p>What happens to wool yarn if it is put in a plastic cup with water.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Use two different plastic cups, one with only water, the other with some added soap.<\/li>\n<li>What is happening? Why?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Step 5: Why<\/h2>\n<p>The soap reduces the surface tension of the water and causes the wool yarn to become wetter and sink. to the bottom of the earth.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finlandiakirja.fi\/fi\/kirsi-rehunen-tiedeleikkeja-pikkututkijoille-c88c2a?srsltid=AfmBOooTzS_Il8650uQv9QnGv_5pRn07t65w5Y0jkTsrajUHgsBnGAJp\">Rehunen, Kirsi. Tiedeleikkej\u00e4 pikkututkijoille<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What have you seen floating or jumping on the surface of the water? Step 1 Materials Paper Pens Scissors A large flat container Water Wool yarn Soap Two plastic cups Step 2 Implementation Let&#8217;s start by preparing the flowers. Draw a flower on a piece of paper with a middle part larger than the petals. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.edu.turku.fi\/scienceed\/2026\/04\/10\/floating-flowers-and-surface-tension\/\" class=\"more-link\">Forts\u00e4tt l\u00e4sa<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \u201dFloating flowers and surface tension\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2590,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30020],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.edu.turku.fi\/scienceed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.edu.turku.fi\/scienceed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.edu.turku.fi\/scienceed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.edu.turku.fi\/scienceed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2590"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.edu.turku.fi\/scienceed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.edu.turku.fi\/scienceed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1916,"href":"https:\/\/blog.edu.turku.fi\/scienceed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions\/1916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.edu.turku.fi\/scienceed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.edu.turku.fi\/scienceed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.edu.turku.fi\/scienceed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}