Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Transparent and Bouncy Egg Experiment

If you haven't heard.... Rachelle from TinkerLab and I are both presenting an amazing egg activity each day for Egg Week.  Are you joining in late?  Be sure to check both of our posts from yesterday. Today I am presenting what turned out to become 2 Egg Experiments and you'll understand why once you get to the end of this post.  The ending experiment is AMAZING!

We began with the intention of creating a Bouncy Egg from a raw egg and a hard boiled egg.  This idea intrigued my daughter immensely. I asked her: "What do you think happens when you put an egg in vinegar?"She wasn't sure and I didn't know either because this experiment was new to me.  I told her that according to the directions  here that the vinegar was suppose to create an egg that would bounce. Keep reading to find out how we made our bouncy eggs. 


For this Experiment you'll need:

2 glass jars or plastic containers with covers
1 raw egg
1 hardboiled egg
vinegar (enough to cover both eggs)

First,  put the eggs in the jars and label them (I just labeled the raw egg).  Then pour the vinegar in the jars to cover the eggs. Cover the jars and put them somewhere away from the sun. They should be left in the vinegar for 2 days (48 hours). 
After an hour or so the eggs started bubbling on the outside. The explanation to why vinegar and an egg shell bubble is similar to what happened in our Baking Soda and Vinegar Experiment.  The egg shell has calcium carbonate in it which reacts the same as vinegar and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda).


The hard boiled egg seemed to sink and turn at times. My guess is because it is more dense and the bubbling caused it to move.


The raw egg seemed to float probably because it is composed of just liquid.  C observed that the raw egg got bigger too.  Later I read that the raw egg absorbs the vinegar which makes it bigger.



We observed the shell was coming off by the next day.  With a white egg it would be more difficult to tell unless you touched the egg.



The next step was to rinse the eggs in cold water to remove any shell and then bounce them. After two days we observed the eggs to have totally lost their shell and both seemed to look soft and rubbery.  It did seem to be bouncy, but not extremely bouncy so we left the egg in the vinegar (maybe it needed more time?) You'll never guess what happened to the raw egg.....



I decided to let it bounce on the counter and it did a couple times.....then OH NO!!!! SPLAT! The egg broke open.  I though to myself.....WHAT DID I DO WRONG???  Then later I read here that the raw egg only has a thin membrane (the stuff to the left of the egg) holding it together.....that makes sense now.  The directions I was following here did not say anything about this happening....it just said it would bounce.


I decided that I needed to try this experiment again (still thinking I did something wrong!) When I read further about this experiment with a raw egg here I realized I did everything correctly.  The experiment done with a raw egg is sometimes called: The Transparent Egg Experiment.

The Transparent Egg Experiment

 For this experiment you'll need:

a raw egg (you may want to do a few in case your egg breaks)
vinegar
glass jar or plastic container with lid

Place your raw egg in a jar and cover it with vinegar. You will notice the reaction of the egg shell with calcium carbonate and vinegar.  It will bubble for the first day (as above) The second day you need to change the vinegar. After 48 hours we carefully rinsed the raw egg and noticed it was transparent! Cool! Isn't it amazing? Basically it is an egg without a shell! 


Here you can see that it is flexible because of the membrane.  The membrane thickens with the vinegar and holds the raw egg together.



The Naked raw egg bounces,  but don't bounce too high or too hard or you'll have an egg splatted on the counter top.



Here is the naked raw egg and a hard boiled bouncy egg.  We added blue to the vinegar for the second time we did the bouncy egg.  Both eggs did bounce because of the membrane around the egg.  We noticed the raw naked egg was much larger than the hard boiled bouncy egg. The reason the raw egg is larger is because the egg absorbed some of the vinegar.


This was quite an experiment and we learned a lot.  I hope I have given you some tips so that your experiment is successful.

Have you tried any of these experiments before?
(let me know how your experience goes)

Be sure to check out the amazing egg activity that TinkerLab has in store for you today here.  Make Your Own Egg Tempera Paint

59 comments:

  1. This is just incredible - love it!! I will definitely be giving this a try with the kiddos. Thank you for sharing, I am always on the look out for new ideas!

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    1. Thanks Janice, I've never done this as a child so it was AMAZING to me as an adult! Hope you enjoy and let me know if you have any questions.

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    2. Im sorry, but adding vinegar to an egg will not remove the shell. I make pickled eggs this way and I let them sit for two weeks and I still have to take the shell off...

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    3. Well this has been tested many times i even tested it in science class as a 5th grader and it worked

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    4. I saw your website and was amazed eggs can do that so me and my friends are doing that as our 5th grade science project I think we will get an A+ !

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    5. this is the way you can teach kids about diffusion or osmosis. After dissolving the egg in vinegar put some in corn syrup and watch what happens! It will show water/vinegar moving out of the egg.

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    6. Yes this does work and you are right,,give it a little tap but don't "bounce" it will burst.

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    7. Future bounce-balls should be like this! :)

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    8. exept you have to wear a mask

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  2. I have done this for years and the children are fascinated with the results!

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    1. That is great that you have done this with children. YOur children are so fortunate to have this experience to open up their minds!

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    2. boys or girls?

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  3. oooh your eggs look great! We love eggs on Science Sparks. xx

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    1. Thanks Emma. I'm so amazed at how may things you can do with eggs. There are so many awesome activities.

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  4. We did this experiment last year and it was a lot of fun. The egg will bounce a little bit if you do it gently, but we had the same result as Miss C held the egg as high as she could and dropped it into a bowl! SPLAT!

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    1. I had no idea the egg would break so it was a real eye opener. I would recommend to do more than one raw egg just so everyone has a chance to test the bounciness and strength of their eggs.

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  5. What fun experiments with eggs! I have never done either of them, but think we will have to give them a try some time this next month since eggs will be in such full supply in our home.

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  6. Hi.
    http://carousel-gr.blogspot.com/
    :)

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  7. If you take a transparent egg and put it in corn syrup, it will shrink back down and the membrane will get a little wrinkly. The water transfers through the membrane back out and into the corn syrup. And you can put it back in water again after that and it'll swell back up. And then you can dance around the kitchen singing "I have a fat egg" and end up with egg guts all over the floor and your foot and ankle. I mean, I imagine you could do that. ;)

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    1. This made me giggle :) I want to do the fat egg dance.. um, I mean, I'm sure my kiddos would love it ;)

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    2. This expirement is so COOL. My friends are impressed and think i could be the FATHER OF SCIENCE.

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  8. Thank you for sharing these experiments, Melissa, the transparent egg is fascinating!

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  9. This looks like such fun! We will need to try it.

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  10. We are doing this with the raw egg in my first grade class room. One of my students told me about the hard-boiled egg and how it makes a bouncy ball. I think I will leave that one up to the parents :) The kids have loved watching the shell disappear!!

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    1. It is truly an amazing experiment! Glad your students have enjoyed it so far.

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  11. Oh my gosh, Melissa, you tell a great story! So, the main difference is that you changed the vinegar the second day? That's amazing. N will love to try this, I'm sure!

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    1. Thanks Rachelle. I was worried it might be little long winded of a story. Yes, that is all that is different and every idea tells something slightly different. This experiment is right up your alley!

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  12. We did an 'eggsperiment' that included leaving one of our hard boiled eggs in a vinegar mixture for 5 days, the kids loved how squishy and bouncy it was. We also soaked eggs in a few other liquid concoctions and used it to teach dental health: http://fitkidsclub.blogspot.com/2012/02/clubhouse-teeth-part-2.html

    We love learning, experimenting, and exploring with eggs! I love how you added color to the vinegar. We plan on trying all of the egg week fun activities at the Clubhouse Classroom soon!! Thanks :)

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    1. So Awesome that you love doing all these egg experiments. I never realized until recently that there were so many experiments with eggs! Wish I would have had these experiences as a child! Better late than never! Thanks for sharing your link.

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  13. If you like working with eggs. See my 'egg in the bottle' experiment at milkywaymetro.com

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  14. This is definitely on my list of things to do - classic!

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  15. Will definitely try this out. This is the newest trick out of the 10 experiments you presented (at least to us!). My little boy loves balls and a bouncy egg sure counts as one. More so he'll be the one to make it! Thanks!

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  16. Did you cut the hard boiled egg open? Was there blue on the inside and the outside? I am wondering if the membrane of a cooked egg is as permeable as a non-cooked egg? Thanks!

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  17. THis looks cool! Were trying this out out school and were the students!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  18. Please at least consider buying free range eggs for these experiments. There is astounding cruelty rampant in the egg production industry, but every step helps.

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    1. why dont you shut up and let people not worry about stupid stuff

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  19. my little sister did this for her science experiment and got an A+ good job!!!

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  20. i post to have an A but my stupid science teacher said i post to do something less messing and dirt lol that's what a science fair project post to be dumb teacher but she gave somebody else an A for doing a project on how to make slime he didnt have a purpose ............ i know ya'll think i'm hated but i'm not ..ok i'm hating so

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  21. an amazing projectttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt away doing this project

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  22. Ansdfghjkl;'
    '[poiuytr54e3w2qsdfgh

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  23. How do I make a egg not brake from high distances to the floor with it being raw WITHOUT USING STRAW OR TAPE

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  24. I'm gonna try this out!!!!!

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  25. So, I teach 2nd grade science and wanted to do this with them. Does anyone think this would be too advanced for them, and if not, what exactly could I explain to them that would help them learn something?

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    1. its fun i should know im in the 5th graid and i have horrable spelling

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  26. Can you tell me things such as what would be the independent variable, dependent, constants and your hypothesis?

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  27. this is supposed to be for a fun science project so i hope it turns out good! (:

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  28. my mom keeps on harassing me about this project. :~(

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  29. plus this is the mom guy I think this is a great project too.

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  30. this is gonna be a fun science fair project

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  31. Wow, love this activity. My daughter loves bouncy and stretchy things. This will be right up her street. Thank you for sharing

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  32. Wow, love this activity. My daughter loves bouncy and stretchy things. This will be right up her street. Thank you for sharing

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  33. It's nice, i made one but it really stinks :(

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Comments are always appreciated---Thank you! Thank you!