One of the most classic and timeless activities that so many children do at summer camp is tie dye! Did you know that you can make tie dye at home with permanent markers? Let’s learn about chemical reactions while creating a wearable masterpiece!
Here’s what you’ll need:
- A white shirt
- An assortment of colored permanent markers
- At least 2 plastic cups
- At least 2 rubber bands
- Water
- Isopropyl alcohol
- A medicine dropper or something else to drip liquid with
Before getting started, consider protecting the surface for your experiment with some newspapers or plastic. You’ll be using permanent markers, and they can stain.
Lay out your white t-shirt. Wherever you want to create your design on the shirt, place a plastic cup underneath and use the rubber band to wrap the shirt around the cup, making sure the shirt is stretched tight. Do this in at least 2 places on the shirt to create 2 canvases for your tie dye art!
Next, use your markers to create colorful designs in your circles. Get as creative as want, and make sure to use a variety of colors.
Once you’re done drawing your designs, it’s time to experiment! Use your dropper to add a few drops of water around each of your designs. What happens to the ink? Drop more water onto each circle until the whole circle is damp. Does the ink change now that the spot is fully damp?
For best results, take some time to let your shirt dry before moving on to the next part of the experiment.
Next, use your dropper to spread a few drops of alcohol onto your designs? What happens to the ink now? What happens when you spread alcohol over the whole design?
Make sure to lay your shirts out to dry. Once they are dried, you have an awesome piece of wearable art!
So what happened in this experiment? Permanent marker ink does not dissolve (or, it is insoluble) in water. When you added water to your designs, the ink should have remained the same. However, the ink is soluble in isopropyl alcohol, so when you dripped the alcohol onto your design, the ink should have spread and run together, creating a tie dye effect.
Check out the full experiment and more science behind it from Science Buddies here.
As always, get as creative as you want, and above all, have lots of fun learning together!
We’ll see you right back here next Saturday for another STEAM Saturday activity! Scroll through the rest of our website to learn how Critchlow Adkins is Building Brighter Futures for the children and families we serve!
