by Have you ever wondered what an egg would look like without a shell? Maybe it would just fall apart. No, it actually has a membrane inside it that you can visualize with this simple egg experiment.
Of course, we had to take the experiment even further and explore the effects of osmosis on our egg by shrinking it and re-growing it!
We started by placing a raw egg in 16 oz of vinegar to dissolve the shell. I asked the girls what would happen as we started to see bubbles forming on the egg. Bria said it would crack and something would come out of it; Nadia wasn't sure what would happen.
The next morning the shell was gone! They each got to hold the "naked" egg.
As you can see, the water went into the egg changing it purplish.
Then we decided to shrink the egg with corn syrup. This time all the water left the egg for the thicker corn syrup. It actually took over 24 hours to fully shrink, and I didn't get a picture of the completed egg, but you can probably appreciate the wrinkles in the picture I do have at around 12 hours.
After shrinking the egg, we decided to try re-hydrating it just to see if we could. So back into water the egg went. And we got a cloudier version of our purple egg!
At this point we couldn't think of much else to do to the egg, so we cut it open. The yolk was intact, but the normal gooey egg white was replaced with a bluish tinted water. The girls thought it was pretty cool anyhow.
This entire experiment took 4-5 days, but it only used one egg, and it was fun to see how much we could change the egg just by taking advantage of osmosis to move water in and out of the egg membrane.
Of course, we had to take the experiment even further and explore the effects of osmosis on our egg by shrinking it and re-growing it!
Supplies to Remove Eggshells, Shrink Eggs, and Regrow Eggs
- Raw Egg
- Vinegar
- Food Coloring
- Corn Syrup
- Water
- Glass
Egg-citing Science Experiment
We started by placing a raw egg in 16 oz of vinegar to dissolve the shell. I asked the girls what would happen as we started to see bubbles forming on the egg. Bria said it would crack and something would come out of it; Nadia wasn't sure what would happen.
The next morning the shell was gone! They each got to hold the "naked" egg.
At that point we decided to change the egg colors through osmosis. The girls chose purple which has to be one of the hardest colors to make with water, but we tried. Into the purplish water the egg went.
As you can see, the water went into the egg changing it purplish.
Then we decided to shrink the egg with corn syrup. This time all the water left the egg for the thicker corn syrup. It actually took over 24 hours to fully shrink, and I didn't get a picture of the completed egg, but you can probably appreciate the wrinkles in the picture I do have at around 12 hours.
After shrinking the egg, we decided to try re-hydrating it just to see if we could. So back into water the egg went. And we got a cloudier version of our purple egg!
At this point we couldn't think of much else to do to the egg, so we cut it open. The yolk was intact, but the normal gooey egg white was replaced with a bluish tinted water. The girls thought it was pretty cool anyhow.
This entire experiment took 4-5 days, but it only used one egg, and it was fun to see how much we could change the egg just by taking advantage of osmosis to move water in and out of the egg membrane.
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