Solubility: Tie Dye Nametags

Here's an art project, that's totally based on science!

Background information:
Substances are classified as polar and non-polar (if you're interested in learning more about what exactly this means, I'll let you Google it). Polar substances can dissolve other polar substances (water is polar, sugar is polar, therefore sugar can dissolve in water), but they cannot dissolve non-polar substances (water is polar, oil is non-polar, therefore water cannot dissolve oil). This is summarized as "like dissolves like".


For this activity you'll need:
**Cardstock
**Shaving Cream
**Pie pans
**Food Coloring
**Toothpicks
**Straight edge tool (for scraping) - a ruler works
**Paper Towels

The procedure:
1. Spray a layer of shaving cream into the pie pan.
2. Add a few drops of food coloring to the top of the shaving cream (you can use multiple colors).
3. Use a toothpick to mix the color into the shaving cream.
4. Place the piece of cardstock on top of the shaving cream.
5. Peel off the cardstock and place face up on paper towel.
6. Using the straight edge, scrape off the shaving cream from the cardstock.
7. Allow cardstock to dry (won't take very long).

You can dye multiple pieces of cardstock with the same shaving cream before it needs to be replaced.

Why it works:
Paper and food coloring are polar substance so the paper absorbs the food coloring. Shaving cream is mostly non-polar, therefore the paper will not absorb it.