Dancing Ants
Updated: Jul 16, 2020
We whipped up this quick and easy science experiment after our attempt at making our gummy caterpillars 🐛 dance was a big fat fail.
I was bummed, but these things happen, and thankfully I had done this experiment before as a kid so I knew it would work!
Supplies:
raisins
sprite or other clear carbonated soda
glass or jar
To make:
Fill your glass with the carbonated beverage.
Drop your ants in the glass. 🐜
The ants will drop to the bottom. After a few seconds, they will rise to the top and then fall again. They will continue doing this for quite awhile. Your ants are dancing!
I love this picture of C watching his ants. He said he could watch them all day. Project success!
After we made our ants dance, we decided to see if we could round up some real ants and make them change colors. I had seen this on Pinterest over and over, and I was hugely skeptical that it would work. But we decided to give it a go.
We mixed 3 T of sugar with 1/4 cup water and added some food coloring. Then we placed a few spoonfuls outside on the sidewalk where we saw ants crawling around.
It took no time at all to attract a bunch of ants, a couple of different kinds actually.
Alas, none of our ants had clear bottoms and therefore they did not change color. However, all was not lost! My kids still loved observing the ants and couldn’t believe the number of ants that were there after half an hour!
If you live in an area with ghost ants, this activity may work for you. But, as always, you can’t always believe what you see. 😉
Did you make your ants dance? Tell us about it with photos/videos @little.sunshine.mom! ☀️