Science Experiment on Oil

Today after learning about plants and seeds we did a simple science experiment to see which fruits or seeds contain oil.

We began with a brown paper bag. We drew several circles on them. In each circle we placed small broken pieces of each of the following: apples, orange peel, olives, sunflower seeds and walnuts. We also placed several drops of water in one circle and several drops of oil in another. We labelled each spot.

Then Rhiannon made a hypothesis about which would contain oil. We wrote it here:

Rhiannon's hypothesis

Which will contain oil
olives
sunflower seeds
oranges

Which will not contain oil
walnuts
apples

Then we ground each item into its circle. Careful to completly wash and dry our fingers between each item to not influence the items. Rhiannon made some observations as we did it. Finally we threw out the items and let the items dry. The results of our experiment were as follows:

Experiment Results

Those that contain oil
Walnut
olives
sunflower

Those that do not contain oil
oranges
apples

Observations according to Rhiannon.
"You could tell which ones had oil when you held it up to the light and the ones with oil in them made a patch you could see through, a white patch on the cardboard. The items with oil also left a stain on the paper where the water dried up"