Oh, the many fun kitchen science experiments you can do with an egg.
You can make them bounce and learn about osmosis in the process…
You can dissolve egg shells in vinegar and learn about surface erosion…
and then you can do this experiment —> make an egg that folds.
In today’s science experiment, this is exactly what we’re doing. An egg that folds many times over, inflates and deflates and one that you can bounce in your hand. You don’t need any fancy science toys for this. All you need are vinegar and of course, an egg!
Questions To Ask Before The Experiment:
Contents
- What do you think will happen to an empty egg when we soak it in vinegar?
- Do you think we can substitute vinegar with other liquids?
Materials:
You will need:
- clear glass
- vinegar
- egg
- safety pin, needle or nail
- small bowl
Step by Step Procedure:
- First, poke 2 holes in the egg, preferably the top and bottom parts. This may seem a little bit daunting when you first try it, but it’s really not that difficult. Slowly wiggle the pin into the egg and then wiggle it a little bit more to make the hole big enough for the egg to be easily pushed out.
[Note: If you’re scared to break the egg, you can use masking tape on the part of the egg where you make the hole. This makes the eggshell a bit stronger when you poke the nail into it.] - Now that you have two holes in the eggs, you’d want to push the egg out into the small bowl. Do this by blowing through one hole so that the egg will go out the other. You can either blow straight into the egg or use you can use a straw.
- Next, fill the glass with vinegar.
- Then put the empty egg into the vinegar. This will prove a bit tricky at first as the egg will float so you will need to push it in the vinegar until it gets heavy enough to sink (i.e the vinegar enters the egg and weighs it down).
- Leave the egg in the vinegar for 10 days.
- After a week, take the egg out. As you can see it now looks and feels different than the original egg.
- Lastly, it’s time to play with it. See how many times you can fold it. Bounce it between your hands and watch it grow back into an egg as the air gets inside it.
Some Things To Think About:
- Why can you fold the egg now?
- What were those bubbles that you saw when you put the egg in the vinegar?
Video
Here’s a video by Hoopla Kidz Lab showing this experiment. If you want to see more science experiments, kids crafts and other family friendly content, subscribe to our Youtube channel
Observation Of This Egg Experiment
If you’ve done one of the many egg experiments before, you may already know that vinegar dissolves eggshells. The classic bouncing egg experiment shows us this.
But isn’t it cool that if you soak only the eggshell in the vinegar, you end up with this folding egg?
Explanation
In the experiment above, you only used the shell and membrane parts of the egg when you soaked it in vinegar.
Now you know what vinegar does to eggshells? It dissolves it.
This is because an egg shell’s main ingredient is calcium carbonate (CaCO3). And the thing with calcium carbonate is that when you put it in vinegar which has acetic acid, it breaks down into calcium and carbon dioxide.
So, let’s go back to the parts of the egg.
The shell has dissolved. And what have you got left?
That’s right. The egg’s membrane.
What you are holding in your hand, the one that folds, the one that you can throw from one hand to the other is the egg’s membrane.
Pretty cool STEM activity, huh? Now, you know!