My Dragon Fruit Skin, Color is Seen!

Abstract

This paper demonstrated a simple colourful activity that unlocked the child’s
curiosity on how a collared paper is made and where its colour came from. Since the child
had already a concept of colors during her preschool years, performing a simple activity
or experiment in obtaining natural pigment from plant parts gave the child additional
concept about colors. It focused on the ability of the dragon fruit skin extract to act as a
natural color to a paper, thus an improvised colored paper or filter paper was made. To
make the natural color, the researchers (mom/teacher and child) collected and extracted
by boiling the dragon fruit skin. The extracted solution was cooled and kept on a
refrigerator for a while. The upcoming kid innovator (child) as assisted by mother-teacher
then improvised a colored paper by dipping the paper into the extract of dragon fruit skin.
Two types of paper were used: a bond paper and a filter paper. Pieces of clean bond paper
and filter paper were soaked into the extract solution, air dried, and set aside for
comparison. It was observed by the child that an ordinary bond paper did not absorbed
much of the color of the dragon fruit skin extract; while the filter paper absorbed the color
of the extract. Though the two types of paper was dyed with color purple or pink, it was
concluded by the child that filter paper is better than an ordinary paper. The colored papers
out of dragon fruit skin extract were kept for art purposes and science presentation. It is
further recommended by the mother-teacher to conduct more study, activity or
experiment on the natural color produced by the dragon fruit.