Egg-cellent Egg-periments

I love Pinterest.  Seriously!  Sometimes I wonder what we did before things like Google and Pinterest.  At times, it is completely overwhelming how many ideas and things we can do.  I've always loved visuals, so Pinterest just makes my job easier or maybe it's harder because I want to try so many things.

Anyway, for the last few years there has been this neat little experiment using eggs.  The more I read about them, the more I had to try the experiment.

The best part is it was really two experiments in one.

Make eggshells disappear from eggs.  To make it more interesting, we used two different-sized eggs and we used food coloring on some of the eggs.

Make our eggs bounce.

Medium and Large eggs (Half my class got one size and the other half got the other size)
Vinegar
Food Coloring
Plastic Cups
Plastic Tablecloths

For the first experiment, I let the kids put the egg in their cup and choose the color to put in the cups.  I then put vinegar in the cups.  We did this on a Friday and left them for five days before we attempted to clean one of them off.  Using my thumb, I cleaned off the egg.  Be careful doing this because if your fingernail catches it or presses down too hard, then it will put a little hole in it.  Also, for future reference, I would probably only dye two or three eggs and leave the rest plain.  It was neat, but it defeated the purpose because you really couldn't see the yolk.

We didn't do the second experiment until two weeks after the first experiment.  It takes awhile to get the egg to a point where it may possibly bounce.  I probably would have left the eggs even longer, but I swear that my custodian was going to get me if I left them much longer.  Not to mention, our STEM room smelled like salt and vinegar chips for two weeks.

To make this work, all my kids sat and I called one at a time to give them his/her egg.  I cleaned them to try to keep them from breaking.  We moved the rug out of the way and put two plastic tablecloths on the floor.  This way if they broke it wouldn't be a huge deal.  I mean I don't want to clean up eggs that have soaked in vinegar for two weeks.  Do you?

I had one student at a time go to the tablecloth to drop their egg.  We did them from LOTS of different heights and all but two broke on the first drop.  One of the smaller, colored eggs made it a few drops.  Then my clear egg made it around six or seven drops.  The final drop was chest high and that one broke.  I was kind of glad because if you watch the video the bell is ringing in the background.

It really was a ton of fun and gave us a lot to talk about over two weeks.  It also really helped with behavior because the kids wanted to check the eggs every day and I wouldn't let them unless they had perfect behavior.

If you want more information, here are some sites where I got an idea about how I would make this work and what was causing it to work.  It also would make an incredible How To writing lesson, but we were already working on another egg writing assignment, so I didn't get to do this one.

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/naked-egg-experiment
http://www.factmonster.com/cig/science-fair-projects/making-eggs-that-bounce.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Bouncy-Egg

Have a great day!