FUN WITH KIDS: MAKE A RUBBER NAKED EGG!

My Terms:

Rubber Naked Egg - a raw egg that has no shell!  

Technical Terms:

The shell of an egg (typically a chicken egg) is made up of primarily calcium carbonate. If you soak this egg shell in vinegar (which is about 5% acetic acid), you start a chemical reaction that dissolves the calcium carbonate shell. The acetic acid reacts with the calcium carbonate in the egg shell and releases carbon dioxide gas that you see as bubbles on the shell. The egg insides remain intact and are held together by the two fragile membranes just inside the shell.

This is so much fun to do with the kids of all ages!  

My entire family had a blast with this experiment!

What You Need:

*Vinegar

*Raw Egg

*Container

• Place the raw egg in vinegar (enough to cover the egg
• It's ok if the egg floats like mine is
• Immediately the vinegar gets to work 
• (See the bubbles) that is the vinegar eating the shell
• Let the egg soak in the vinegar for at least 24
• After a bit you will start to see a yucky white frothy scum (like my technical terms)  This is a good thing that means the vinegar is doing its job!
• After a good day of soaking carefully take the egg out of the vinegar
• You should be able to literary rub the shell right off the egg!
• The shell will rub off as a white powdery substance (technical term again)
• Be careful doing this...the shell should come off with ease, if not put back in the vinegar and let soak longer.
• Ta-da.....you have a rubber naked egg!

HAVE SOME FUN WITH YOUR RUBBER NAKED EGG:

• BOUNCE YOUR EGG!
• Yes bounce your egg......the egg's outer liner is like rubber 
• See how high you can get the egg to bounce
• I would start with only a few inches and work your way up
• Remember the egg is still raw and will eventually break
• Really only good to about knee high (yes we found out the hard way) 
• SHRINK YOUR EGG!
• Place your egg in a cup of corn syrup for a day or two
• Corn syrup is made of very little water, while an egg is made up of about 90% water.  
• The corn syrup will suck the water right out of the egg leaving it looking like an over sized raisin 

• ENLARGE YOUR EGG!
• If you shrunk your egg you can bring it back to life by putting it a glass of water
• The egg will suck the water back up
• This is pretty cool if you are using a shrunken egg!  You can see the egg grow back to its normal size (it happens rather quick)
• The longer you leave the egg in the water the larger it will get
• You could even add some food coloring to the water to color your egg! 

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