FHE Object lesson

24-Hour Flower Power

By Austin Cannon

Austin Cannon lives in Utah, USA.

A flower can’t change color, right?

Photographs by Craig Dimond; illustrations by David Habben

You’ve heard how it goes: “Roses are red, violets are blue.” But what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if you could change the color of a flower?

Think of the possibilities. Can’t find any green flowers? Make one. Think that dull white flower should be a happy yellow? Done. Orange and blue? Why not?

With just the supplies you have in your house, you can make a flower any color you want. A rainbow bouquet could be just a few hours away.

It will take a little preparation and patience, but it’ll be worth it when you can show your flowers off at family home evening.

Supplies

• Clear cups or glasses

• Water

• Food coloring

• White flowers, such as carnations or roses

• A knife or scissors

Getting Ready

To have the full effect for your family home evening, you’ll need to start this object lesson the day before and keep your project hidden. The flowers need time to change colors.

Prep Steps:

1. For each color you want, fill a cup halfway with water.

2. Add the food coloring of your choice to each cup. The more drops of food coloring you add, the better it works. Try 20–30 drops.

3. Cut the stem of each flower at an angle to let them absorb more water.

4. Put the flowers in the water and let them soak.

Remember, it can take 24 hours to see the full effects. It’s still fun, though, to check on the flowers every once in a while to see how they’re changing.

The Lesson

When it’s time for family home evening, let everyone in your family have a turn.

Give each person a flower and a glass of water. Invite them to pick their food coloring and color their water. Now ask them what they think will happen to their flower once they place it in the colored water.

After they’ve made predictions, let everybody put their flower into their colored water. Discuss how the immediate result met or didn’t meet their expectations. (They probably won’t guess that it takes a few hours to start changing colors.)

Pull out your flowers from the night before. Check out your family members’ faces when they see how colorful the flowers are!

Now it’s time for the interesting thought: we’re kind of like the white flowers. We absorb what we surround ourselves with, whether good or bad, and the influence on us may not always be immediately apparent.

Chat with your family about how the people and things we surround ourselves with affect us. Sometimes bad attitudes and habits can result from who or what is around us. But on the bright side, when we surround ourselves with good things, they will start to show in us too! Maybe that white flower from the experiment is now your favorite color and is even more beautiful. We can be better and more beautiful too if we surround ourselves with good things. Just as it says in the thirteenth article of faith, “If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”

Discuss ways you can be careful about your surroundings. And remember: We can choose to include uplifting things and people in our lives. When we do, it’s fun to see what blossoms!

Mix It Up

If you want to experiment even more, try cutting the stem of a flower in half lengthwise so that it splits up the middle. Put each end in separate cups side-by-side with different colors in each cup to see what happens!