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Create a hot-cold chameleon with your cup!
Your Thermocolor Cup Kit Includes
Fun Fact:
Mood rings are made with thermochromic ink! Your skin
will heat up when you're angry or cool down when you're
relaxed. These rings have thermochromic leucodye that
changes color with your skin temperature!
1 Thermocolor Cup
1 Watch or Clock
How to Use Your Thermocolor Cup
Step 1: Leave your cup at
room temperature
for 30 minutes.
The Science Behind Your Thermocolor Cup
Step 1
Step 2
Your Thermocolor Cup is made with a special
temperature-sensitive ink called thermochromic
leucodye. Leucodyes are chemicals that change color
when there is a temperature change of about 5°C (9°F) or
more. Thermochromic leucodyes can be made to change
colors at specific temperatures. The ink used to make your
cup changes color at around 7-12ºC (45-50ºF).
Step 2: Pour cold water into
your cup. You may
have to add ice.
What color does it
change to?
Try This at Home!
Fun Fact:
A Cup of Color!
Snowflakes are formed when water vapor in a cloud
condenses and freezes around an ice crystal!
Take your drink's temperature!
You Will Need
1 Thermocolor Cup
2 Cups of RoomTemperature Tap Water
5 Colored Pencils
(blue, red, orange, green, purple)
2 Ice Cubes
1 Spoon
Directions
Step 1: Fill your cup halfway with room-temperature tap water.
Step 4: Stir the water. Repeat step 2.
Step 2: Feel your cup. Is it warm or cold? Color in what you see
on the Color-o-Meter chart below.
Step 5: Add a second ice cube to your cup. Wait until it melts.
Repeat step 2.
Step 3: Add one ice cube to your cup. Wait until it melts.
Repeat step 2.
Step 6: Empty your cup and add more tap water. Repeat step 2.
Color-O-Meter
Step 1-2
Warm
Step 3
Cold
Warm
Step 4
Cold
Warm
Step 5
Cold
Warm
Step 6
Cold
Warm
Cold
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Sparking Imaginative Learning
What’s Going On?
The thermochromic leucodye in your cup is
reacting to the temperature of the water! The ink
used to make your cup changes color at around
7-12ºC (45-50ºF). You can see which part of the
water is colder than this temperature, and which
part of the water is warmer.
Fun Fact:
Matter changes its state from solid to liquid to gas
depending on its temperature!
Continue Your Explorations
States of Matter!
Give water a workout!
You Will Need
1 Ice Cube
Fun Fact:
1 Large, Dry, Clear,
Plastic, Drinking Glass
1 Adult Helper
Any matter—even
rocks—can be boiled
and changed into vapor
if enough heat is added!
1 Bowl of Warm
Tap Water
Directions
Note: Ask an adult to help you prepare a small bowl of warm tap water. It should be very warm but not hot enough to burn you.
Step 1: Place the glass upside down in the bowl. Place the ice
cube on top of the glass.
Step 1a
Step 2: Look closely at the bottom of the drinking glass.
What's happening?
Step 1b
Step 2
What’s Going On?
Water has three states of matter: ice when it's solid, water
when it's liquid, and vapor when it's gas. Water vapor is
invisible, but sometimes water droplets mix in and the vapor
becomes white like clouds or kettle steam. When water is
heated enough, it evaporates to become vapor. When vapor is
cooled enough, it condenses and becomes water again.
The warm water was hot enough that some liquid changed
into water vapor. You captured water vapor when you placed
the glass upside down, into the bowl. Adding an ice cube on
top of the glass made the water vapor cool down and change
into water droplets.
Fun Fact:
Some objects are made of a material that is between the solid and
liquid states. These materials are called soft matter. Toothpaste,
mayonnaise, shaving foam, and hair gel are all types of soft matter!
Item # BP0046. © 2012 The Mad Science Group. All rights reserved.
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