Egg Experiment (The Shell-less Egg!)

These are NOT to eat, just for fun!

You will need:

• Eggs (raw)
• Cups
• Vinegar (16 oz or so)

Directions:

1. Place egg in cup.
2. Fill with vinegar until egg covered. It's ok if the egg floats, just make sure to cover most of it.
3. Wait. After a few minutes you will see bubbles on the egg shell. It can take 24 hours or so until most of the shell is eaten away by the vinegar. You can tell it's working by a foam/film on top of the vinegar. 
4. After 24 hours, remove egg from vinegar. The best way is to slowly pour the vinegar out and let the egg fall into your hand. Try to gently rub some of the remaining shell off.
5. If needed, pour a new cup of vinegar and soak egg for another day before gently rubbing cleaning.

Hypothesis and Observations:

• Did your egg get bigger? Why? (Osmosis.)
• Can you make your egg smaller? Try soaking it in something with little water content, like corn syrup. What happened? (Got smaller due to osmosis. The corn syrup had less water content than the inside of the egg.)
• Can you make your egg big again? Put your egg in a cup of water. Did it get bigger? Why? (Osmosis: The water traveled through the semi-permeable egg membrane to equalize the water content between the cup of water and the egg.)
• Put food coloring in a cup of water and let your egg soak. What happened?
• Will your egg bounce? How high can you go before it breaks? Start at 1 inch and work your way up.  (You might want to do this on a covered kitchen floor or outside). 

Bubbles on egg in vinegar

Foam/Film on top of vinegar/egg

Egg after soaking in corn syrup

Egg after soaking blue water

Video of egg bouncing. Remember this is not a hard boiled egg!

I learned about this in my MOPS group. For more information, check out this site:
http://www.imaginationstationtoledo.org/content/2011/04/how-to-make-a-naked-egg/