EGG BUSTER SIX: A RAW EGG CAN BOUNCE LIKE A RUBBER BALL
by Theresa Farris
April 22, 2010
Can a raw egg turn soft and rubbery and bounce like a ball?
K/1 students place one white egg and one brown egg from our chickens at SVCA in jar filled with vinegar. Shortly after we added the eggs we noticed bubbles rising from the eggs. We left the eggs in the vinegar for several days. We removed the eggs from the vinegar to compare how they had changed in texture as well as in color. There were several ways we could tell the white egg from the brown egg. The SVCA egg was no longer a solid brown color but had a brown residue that was easily removed from the egg. The white egg for some reason seemed to increase in size and had a small amount of white residue remaining on the outside of the egg.
Both eggs textures had turned soft and squishy and you guessed it bounced just like a rubber ball. Both eggs looked as if they were a peeled hard-boiled egg. We spent some time bouncing the eggs! We started to get curious about what affect, if any, the vinegar had on the inside of the egg. We carefully broke the shell of the egg. The membrane was still in place surrounding the egg holding it in a perfect circle.
Myth Confirmed!
What happened: Eggs contain something called “calcium carbonate”. This is what makes them hard. Vinegar is an acid known as acetic acid. When calcium carbonate (the egg) and acetic acid (the vinegar) combine, a chemical reaction takes place and carbon dioxide (a gas) is released. That was the bubbles that we noticed around the egg. The chemical reaction keeps happening until all of the carbon in the egg is used up. When you take the egg out of the vinegar it’s soft because all the carbon floated out of the egg in the bubbles.
