How To Make A Clear Egg With Coke

Out of all the egg science experiment you can do dissolving egg shells should be at the top of every child's to do list. It's a great visual and tactile STEM project to do at home and there are quite a few things that you can talk about with the kids.

In fact, it should be on every parent 'to do' list if you haven't done it yet! And if you love this then you may like my Water Movement (capillary action) and Measuring Water Beads experiments.

Materials Required

2-4 clear glasses
Water
White wine vinegar
Coke
Orange juice
Paper towel
Pencil and Notebook (to write down observations)

How To Set Up The Egg Shell Experiment

You want at least two clear glasses. One to add vinegar to (white is better visually but you can use dark vinegar) and one to add water to. The water is the control substance that will do nothing to the egg and keep it exactly the same. If you have enough glasses and the ingredients you can also use a glass of fizzy drink (we used coke) and a glass of fresh fruit juice (we used orange juice).

Place the same sized egg in each glass and cover with each of the liquids you're using.

The Science behind Dssolving An Egg Shell

The vinegar will start to react straight away producing loads of bubbles as the calcium carbonate in the shell is dissolved by the acetic acid producing carbon dioxide.

Bubbles Forming Around Egg Shell In Vinegar

Dissolving Egg Shell Results

We left the eggs for 24 hrs and when we looked found …

The water hadn't done anything
The coke had surprisingly dissolved very little.
The orange juice had dissolved quite a bit
The vinegar had dissolved loads

Dissolving egg shell egg science experiment

We put the eggs back in their liquids and left for a further 12 hour and found …

The water still hadn't done anything
The coke had dissolved a little but more.
The orange juice had dissolved quite a bit more
The vinegar had dissolved all of the shell

Membrane Egg Science Experiment

Now what you may have noticed is that the egg with no shell is also a LOT bigger than the control shell. This is because the membrane around the egg is semi permeable.

Whilst it was in the vinegar the liquid moved through the membrane into the egg resulting in the membrane swelling and increasing in size.

When you hold the egg with no shell it will feel damp to the touch and that's because the liquid is starting to seep back out through the membrane. You can see this really well if you put the shell-less egg on some kitchen roll. The liquid in the shell will soak into the kitchen towel through the membrane .

Bouncing Egg Science Experiment

And there's more!

The egg without its shell and now full of extra liquid, will bounce!

But how high will it bounce?

We cut lengths of wool approximately 10cm in length to hold up as a guide to height. How high do you think we got?

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