Water density

Greetings fellow Scientists!

Inspired by the “Water in the oceans” article in the latest edition of the Catalyst magazine, we decided to test out an experiment described there. 

The article talks about the salty water in the oceans and the fact that it can either mix quickly, slowly or not at all. We conducted an experiment called “Mixing fresh and salty water”. We started with two cups of water. In one, we dissolved salt up until the point we reached a saturated solution. Second cup had no salt at all. We also added two different food colourings to see if the fresh water would mix with the salty water. 

As you can see, when we tried to mix the two waters together, we got two separate layers. Why? Think density J the fresh water is less dense than the salty water.

Try this experiment yourself!