The egg in vinegar experiment is a must-try science activity you can set up in minutes in the classroom or at home! How can you make an egg bounce? What happens to the shell? Does light pass through it?
Vinegar and Egg Experiment
Get ready to try one of the simplest and coolest science experiments for kids. Have you heard of the rubber egg or bouncy egg? You only need a jar of vinegar and a raw egg to explore this fascinating science.
💡 This egg in vinegar experiment is quick to set up, but it must be left for 48 to 72 hours to dissolve the shell and create a bouncy egg!
Grade Recommendation: This rubber egg experiment is suitable for Grades K-2 (simple observation of chemical reactions) and Grades 3-4 (more in-depth understanding of reactions).
Supplies:
- Raw Eggs
- Household Vinegar
- Jar or a Vase
Set Up Egg Vinegar Lab:
STEP 1: Place an egg in the jar and cover with vinegar.
Optional: You can color the vinegar with food coloring for rainbow-colored rubber eggs too!
STEP 2: Wait and watch!
Notice the bubbles on the eggshell! The acid in the vinegar reacts with the calcium carbonate in the shell. This reaction produces a gas called carbon dioxide!
STEP 3: After 48 hours, remove the egg and rinse it off. Ours had a layer of brown scum that was easily washed away! The hard outer shell is gone and a thin membrane surrounds the egg white and yolk.
How can vinegar change an eggshell?
Eggshells get their hardness from a mineral called calcium carbonate, which is similar to our bones. When you place the egg into the vinegar, you will observe bubbles.
The chemical reaction between the vinegar (an acid) and the calcium carbonate (the base) in the eggshell produces these bubbles or gases.
When an acid and a base mix, they form carbon dioxide, a gas. Learn more about acids and bases.
The eggshell breaks down, leaving a soft, bendable, squeeze-able, rubber egg. Does it bounce? Kids can gently squeeze the egg and bounce the egg. However, be prepared for the eggs to burst! See our suggestions below.
🔎 Try our seashells in vinegar experiment for another variation of this chemistry lesson.
How does osmosis work?
What happens when the egg is soaked in vinegar overnight? You may have noticed that the egg gets larger as the shell disappears. This is due to the osmosis process, which is why the inside of the egg increases in size!
Osmosis is the movement of water through a semi-permeable cell membrane. The water from the vinegar moved inside the egg because of the tiny holes in the membrane.
However, the holes are not big enough to allow the egg to come out, so now the egg and water are inside the cell membrane together! The cell membrane is called semi-permeable because only some materials can pass through.
💡 Learn more about osmosis here!
FREE Printable Science Activities Calendar
Fun Things To Do With Your Rubber Egg
Now for the fun part: exploring the naked egg with students! We gathered a few supplies such as a magnifying glass and a large flashlight. However, first, we talked about what our naked egg felt and looked like. We had made a cool, rubbery feeling egg!
💡TIP: Help your child learn to explore by asking questions to spark curiosity!
All of these questions encourage exploration and hands-on learning. Have kids use their senses to observe! What does it smell like? What does it look like? There are so many ways to explore. Grab the magnifying glass too!
Bouncy Egg
Can you make a bouncy egg without cooking it? Yes!! Now, how high can an egg bounce?
TEST IT: How high can your egg bounce before it breaks? Watch out! This might get messy!
Can you see through a bouncy egg?
In general, you can’t see through a raw egg but what about a rubber egg? What happens when you put the naked egg up to a flashlight?
TEST IT: You can see through it! You can even see the yolk rolling around inside. Why is this? Because the hard outer shell is no longer there, you can see through the membrane of the egg.
Will a rubber egg eventually burst?
Of course, we were prompted to wonder what would happen if you burst the naked egg. WOW! With a quick prick from a skewer, the egg burst! We were all quite surprised. The images below show what the naked egg looked like afterward.
How to Differentiate this Project
💡Make sure to introduce the Scientific Method along the way. You can use this method will ages and especially older kids!
For Younger Students (Kindergarten-Grade 1):
- Focus on Observation: Have students simply observe the changes in the egg over time, drawing or coloring what they see.
- Guided Explanation: Use simple language to explain how the vinegar dissolves the shell, leaving the membrane.
For Older Students (Grade 2-4):
- Introduce Scientific Concepts: Discuss the chemical reaction between acetic acid (vinegar) and calcium carbonate (egg shell).
- Data Collection: Have students measure the egg before and after the experiment, then record their findings and make predictions.
Extension for Grades 4-5:
- Inquiry-Based Learning: Ask students to hypothesize what would happen if you used a different liquid, test their hypothesis, and compare results.
- Eggs: Are there differences in eggshells between brown and white eggs? How about organic eggs versus regular eggs?
💡 Learn more about how to choose variables, and write a hypothesis you can test.
More Fun Science Experiments To Try
- Take egg drop STEM challenge
- See if you can make an egg float
- Test the strength of the shell
- Make a crystal eggshell.
- Set up a potato osmosis lab.
- Dissolve a seashell!
AMAZING!
my my bursted my rubberr egg im very upset
is this a fair test?
too many pages to print out….not easy to be able to do .keeps saying click below but get the cards on hypothesisi…dont want that
This is an awesome activity.
This was amazing! in the end it turned out great! my sister popped it tho :c