And more Egg-speriments! (Eggs and Pollution)

We looked at the air bubbles coming out of this egg when it was placed in vinegar and talked about why the shell is porous.  This lets the growing embryo get oxygen.  We then talked about how since it is porous it can let things through — like acid (vinegar), acid rain and pollutants.  We talked about DDT (how eagles nearly became extinct)– and how poisons, pesticides and so forth can harm the animal populations.  We soaked this egg in vinegar for an entire day/night.  It was interesting how much the shell changed. In the pictures below you’ll see how much of the brown coloring came off.
This picture simply shows how a normal egg would not fit into this container.
Then we slowly pushed the vinegar-soaked egg down into the container.
We watched in amazement as we were able to push the entire egg into the container before it broke!
The egg shell was amazingly soft and pliable.  LD really understood how pollution and/or pesticides/poison can affect the eggs of birds and other wildlife.

4 Responses

  1. I just found your blog and My kids and I did all these experiments this summer. Did you find the one where your can squeeze a hard boil egg into a milk bottle with out it breaking. That was my kids favorite.

  2. I just found your blog and My kids and I did all these experiments this summer. Did you find the one where your can squeeze a hard boil egg into a milk bottle with out it breaking. That was my kids favorite.

  3. Leah says:

    You can also continue on with the vinegar soaked egg. You should be able to remove the egg shell while still keeping the membrane and egg itself intact. Then, you can put the egg into different types of solutions and look at the movement of water to study osmosis and semi-permeable membranes on cells.

  4. Leah says:

    You can also continue on with the vinegar soaked egg. You should be able to remove the egg shell while still keeping the membrane and egg itself intact. Then, you can put the egg into different types of solutions and look at the movement of water to study osmosis and semi-permeable membranes on cells.

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