Jennifer Lin
Grade 12 Psychology
Mr. Catlin
Naked Egg
As everyone knows, eggs have shells that we must remove before eating. If we put eggs into vinegar, however, the vinegar will do the work of removing the shell for us. The vinegar will dissolve the eggshell. This happens because vinegar contains an acid called acetic acid, which reacts with the high calcium content of the eggshell. It takes three or four days for the shell to dissolve completely, and we must wait until all the shell is gone before trying to bounce the egg. All we need to do is put some raw chicken eggs into clear, plastic cups. This allows we to watch the reaction as it occurs. Completely cover each egg with vinegar, and let them sit in a place where they don't have to be moved. Check the eggs now and then over the next four days, noticing any changes that we see in the shells. After four days, very carefully, using plastic spoons, remove the eggs from the cups and lay them onto a couple layers of paper towels in order to drain. We'll notice a waxy looking coating on the eggs, but no more shell. Starting at about 2 inches high, drop an egg onto a tabletop or other surface, and watch it bounce. Working in increments of 1 inch, drop the egg from increasing elevations, having our friends do the same if we conducted this experiment with others. Whoever has the egg that survives a drop from the highest height, wins.
I was researching topics for science fair. Suddenly, I came out an idea in my mind was my science teacher told us that we could make the eggshell disappear. Therefore, I started to look for others’ experiments about this topic. I found out that there are some differences of the results by using different kinds of vinegar. I thought this might be an interesting science fair project so I decided to do this experiment. In conclusion, I had lots of fun by doing this project because I didn’t know that the vinegar could really dissolve the eggshell. I learned this from my experiment, and I would like to try to color my naked egg!