With Easter just around the corner, we have been enjoying all sorts of crafts and activities with eggs! While they’re lots of fun for eating and dying, they can also be the subject of several science experiments. Here are the full instructions for making a glowing, bouncy egg plus lots of other ideas for egg-citing science projects!
Glowing Bouncy Egg Directions
- Gather your supplies: a raw egg, a glass, vinegar and vitamin B-50 is all you need!
- Open the vitamin capsules or crush them if need be, I used two capsules.
- Add a cup of vinegar to the vitamin powder and then the raw egg.
- Wait two days and the shell will completely dissolve off of the egg, leaving just the outer membrane. Hold the egg under a blacklight and it will glow!
Once the eggshell has dissolved, remove the egg and wash it off, it will be orange because some of the vitamin and vinegar solution has permeated the membrane. The egg is squishy, it bounces, it’s really fun to play with!
The Science
The eggshell dissolves because the acetic acid in the vinegar attacks the carbonate, releasing carbon dioxide gas and leaving calcium acetate, which is soluble. You can see this happening as bubbles will appear all over the egg immediately!
The glowing effect occurs because the vitamins are fluorescent. When the eggshell is dissolved in the vinegar the membrane of the egg is permeable so some amount of the glowing vinegar infuses the egg, causing it to glow!
Be careful not to bounce it too high! Our egg met an unfortunate end after leaping from my kid’s hands! We used it as a fun learning experience though, you can see that the yolk is still intact and the egg whites remain fluid. The vinegar hasn’t dissolved them. The next experiment we’ll have to try is to figure out how to make edible glowing eggs for breakfast one morning!
Eggs are wonderful subjects for kids science experiments, here are a few more of my favorites!
Volcano Egg Dying
Crystal Egg Geodes
Egg Drop Challenge
Egg in a Bottle
Floating or Sinking Eggs
How have you and your kids learned with the incredible, edible egg?
