Rubber Egg Experiment

A lot of pinners of this Rubber Egg Experiment commented that this was an experiment they loved doing back in school.  I never did this when I was in school, or maybe I was absent that day, so this was my first time experiencing a rubber egg.  I may have been more excited than the kids.

The blog that I pinned, and is linked in the first paragraph, gives good directions on HOW to do the experiment, but it doesn't explain WHY or HOW the egg turns rubbery.  I found this site with a great explanation in to the how's and why's which just happened to tie in perfectly with the acid/base discussions and experiments we've been doing recently.

When we first poured the vinegar over the egg, there was a lot of bubbling and fizzing and cool action going on.  It was fun to watch for awhile and then the rest was a lot of waiting until 7 days was up to check on the final results.  The kids were anxious to see the egg-they kept asking if it had been 7 days yet and, finally, on the 7th day they were quick to remind me that it was time to take our egg out of the glass of vinegar.

I will fully admit I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to touching anything remotely questionable, which I found the egg to be.  Thankfully, the 9 year old doesn't have my squeamishness so he happily was the one to take the egg out.  I did bring myself to touch it, though, and it was pretty darn cool.

The 6 year old takes after me and, while he didn't want to hold it, he did touch it.  The kids were both curious as to whether it would bounce ( a google search tells me that a hard boiled egg turned rubber will, in fact, bounce) and how hard we'd have to drop, or throw, it before it broke.  They were also curious if the shell would "grow back" if we left it in an empty glass for awhile.  Since we only had one egg, I gave them the choice to experiment with how much force it would take to break the egg or if the shell would grow back and they chose the shell option.  We left it in the jar for about 2 more weeks and the shell never really quite came back.  It did get a slightly bumpy surface again and then just started looking nasty and rotting so we threw it out.

This was a fun, easy, educational experiment.  We may do this again soon with a hard boiled egg to make it bounce and maybe even another regular egg to see how strong the naked membranes are.