 Hello, my name is Elio and I'm a Yale 2020 intern at the San Francisco Public Library. Today I'm going to be showing you how to dye white flowers with food dye and the science behind it. The supplies you're going to need for this project are two cups filled with water, one white flower, any type should work, a pair of scissors or a knife, and your two choices of food coloring. I'd recommend experimenting with different flowers and different food coloring to get the results that you want. The first step that we're going to do is cut the flowers. I'd recommend adult supervision or help from an older sibling if you're young with the scissors and knife. For the first step we're going to cut our flower. If you want to dye your flower only one color you can skip this step. Measure two and a half inches up from the base of the flower and with a sharp knife cut down the middle making sure to do it even otherwise it will not work. Even if you just want to dye your flower one color make sure to cut off about a half of an inch at the bottom of the stem to let it suck up more water and have a more color for flower and better results. The second step that we're going to do is add the food dye to the water. First pick out your different colors. I picked green, red, and blue. I recommend darker colors and if you're dyeing one flower multiple colors colors that contrast each other. I picked green for the flower I was dyeing with one color and red and blue for the other multiple color flowers. Add about three drops of food coloring and remember to experiment with different colors for different results. Finally we're going to add the flowers to the glass. Next mix the food coloring in with the water then add the flowers to the jar. I found with some of the flowers that I needed to prop them up on a wall so the flowers didn't tip over. Make sure your flowers are in a spot where they won't fall over and aren't in too dark of a location so they don't wilt and die. You may be wondering how the flowers actually change color so let's talk about the science behind it. The way this works is that plants have little tubes inside of them called xylem. The xylem is represented on the photo by the red and blue lines. Plants use the xylem to soak up the water and suck it up their stem. You can picture the xylem like little straws pumping the water up the stem and throughout the flower. Once the water is pumped up the stem by the xylem it is then transported around the flower. The water helps with plants photosynthesis or getting energy through the sun. The water also helps the plants by transporting protein throughout the plant helping it grow and survive. The reason that the plants change color is due to the dye in the water being pumped up by the xylem then transported around changing the colors of the petals due to the dye. Now let's finally look at the result. As you can see the first flower that we dyed with red and blue dye is now multiple colors. It is kind of faint which may have to do with the fact that the stem was cut in half. Overall I think the flower came up pretty good. Now let's look at the next one. As you can see the second flower is very green. The reason this is is because the green dye is darker than the red and blue. This could also be because the stem on the green flower was not cut in half. Overall if you want darker colors I recommend sticking with one color per flower but if you want multiple just know that it may be lighter in shade. Thank you for watching and be sure to check out the rest of the stem challenge yourself videos by SFPL librarians and Yale interns.