What happened to the egg shells that were soaked liquids that are sugary Why?

Table of Contents Show

Our Tooth Decay Experiment with Eggshells – What We Did
What We Found
Key Takeaways from the Tooth Decay Experiment
Our Recommendations
Try this Tooth Decay Science Project with Egg Shells at Home
Things Needed:
Tooth Decay Experiment Steps:
Instructions
The Science
Extend the Experiment
More Cool Science Experiments for Kids
Check out more cool science activities in the STEM index!

Parents often have trouble convincing their children that soda, candies, sweet foods, and sugary drinks can hurt their teeth. Their constant warnings about teeth decay simply go ignored! With this in mind, the team at Des Moines Dental Group performed an ‘eggcellent’ tooth decay experiment with…surprise! They did it with eggs!

This simple and fun egg tooth decay experiment shows the effect of certain drinks and beverages on the enamel of teeth over time. The idea behind this tooth decay experiment is simple – eggshells are like teeth enamel. When eggshells come in contact with these drinks and beverages for a long time, they get eaten away, just like tooth enamel.

Our Tooth Decay Experiment with Eggshells – What We Did

The idea is to soak raw eggs in different liquids and observe the changes in their appearance and structure for 7 days.

Our team took the following liquids for this tooth decay experiment:

2 Brown Liquids – Coffee and Sweet Tea
Energy Drink
2 Purple Liquids – Fruit Juice and Powerade
Diet Coke and Soda
2 Types of Water – Tap Water with Fluoride and Aquafina (Acidic Water)

We poured each of these liquids in small plastic jars.

Then, we took 9 eggs and soaked one egg in each of these liquids. We left the eggs there for a week and noted the changes every day.

What We Found

The eggs in the brown liquids, i.e., in tea and coffee, had become significantly stained after 4 days.
The egg in the energy drink had become stained and the eggshell had become brittle and damaged. After 7 days, as we can see in the video, the eggshell was eaten away at some places.
The eggs in the purple liquids, i.e., in fruit Juice and Powerade, were damaged and badly stained after 4 days.
In the case of Diet Coke, the egg was badly stained, while the egg in the soda showed mild yellowish stain after 4 days.
The egg in Aquafina (Acidic Water) showed damage after 7 days, whereas the one in the tap water with fluoride remained unaffected and perfect over this period.

Key Takeaways from the Tooth Decay Experiment

With the findings of this eggshells tooth decay science project, here’s what parents can discuss with their children:

Our teeth are made up of minerals. These minerals start to dissolve if they’re exposed to acid. Acid is high in soda, tea, energy drink, and many fruit juices.
Soda and other drinks and beverages can stain teeth too. The tainted eggs can give you an idea of the extent of staining they can cause.
Many drinks and beverages have sugar. Sugar creates plaque, a sticky substance on the teeth, and a plaque build-up can become a home for bacteria. These bacteria produce acids that affect teeth by gradually eating them away.

Our Recommendations

The expert dentists at Des Moines Dental recommend the following to prevent teeth decay and maintain good dental health. With a lockdown in place, it’s good if you follow these tips and proper dental hygiene habits, because you may not see you dentists for some time. Both parents and children need to pay extra attention to their dental health now.

Brush your teeth twice every day, in the morning and at night.
Clean between the teeth regularly using interdental cleaners or dental floss.
Limit snacks and eat balanced and nutritious meals. Avoid carbohydrates, like chips, pretzels, and candy, which can stay on the surface of the teeth. If you eat sticky foods, brush your teeth immediately after eating.

Try this Tooth Decay Science Project with Egg Shells at Home

As kids are at home during this time, you can teach them the importance of good dental hygiene by encouraging them to perform this fun tooth decay experiment. It will be a fun way for them to learn about the importance of good dental hygiene habits, and you get to spend some quality time with your kids as well!

Parents are requested to help their children with this activity.

Things Needed:

1 toothbrush
Toothpaste
2 hard-boiled eggs
A small carton of water or milk
1 can of dark soda pop
2 disposable, clear plastic cups

Tooth Decay Experiment Steps:

Boil two eggs for your children. Remember, only hard-boiled eggs can be used for this experiment. Just as the enamel protects our teeth, the hard eggshell protects the soft egg inside.
Fill a plastic cup with water or milk and another with dark soda pop.
Put an egg in each plastic cup and leave them overnight.
The next day, gently take out the eggs from the different liquids and observe them. You’ll see that the egg in water or milk doesn’t show any changes whereas the one in soda has a darker color.
Think about why the color of one egg has changed while the other remained unchanged.
First ask your kids to understand what they have learned from this experiment. Discuss about the effects of acid and sugar in soda pop and how they are bad for teeth health. Explain to them why anything acidic shouldn’t stay on teeth for a long time. As an after-effect, acid may lead to teeth discoloration and cavities which is evident from eggs shown in this experiment.
Brush the discolored egg in circular motions using a fluoride toothpaste and toothbrush to remove stains while demonstrating proper brushing techniques. Don’t forget to emphasize on interdental flossing with brushing.

We hope your kids will enjoy doing this soda and tooth decay experiment at home and understand the importance of taking proper care of teeth. This fun egg tooth decay experiment can not only educate your kids but also encourage them to follow their daily dental hygiene routine in a more disciplined way.

I hope you will enjoy this fun science experiment for kids. With some basic materials and a day of waiting, you can show your children what drinks like soda pop and fruit juice to do to their teeth and give them an idea of how important it is to brush every day.

PIN IT FOR LATER!

My kids are pop fiends. (I know some of you are confused right now because you call pop soda.)

Probably because I am a pop fiend. They learn what they see, right?

It's not one of our finer points.

Anyway, I wanted to show the girls what pop does to their teeth because they are both kind of in a funk where they don't want to brush without a lot of prompting.

So we talked about how your teeth are made of the same basic stuff (calcium) as eggshells, and so we could soak some eggs in drinks that we like to see what would happen to them over time.

The results, as you can see above, were striking. The kids, Allie especially, really got the idea that these drinks are harmful to her teeth, and she has since been brushing every day without any fuss.

Materials

5 raw white eggs - Actually, they don't have to be raw, but they also don't have to be cooked, so I don't know why you would spend the time.
5 cups
Masking tape
Water
A dark-colored sugar-free drink like Gatorade G2
A dark-colored fruit juice like grape juice
A dark-colored flavor of pop - we used black cherry but cola would probably work better
Orange juice (We only had 4 eggs left in the house, so we omitted orange juice, but I was really interested in what would happen with this. My dentist told me that orange juice is pretty close to the worst drink possible for my soft teeth.)

Instructions

This one is super easy.
Label the cups, one with each drink.
Pour the drink into the cup with that label. Water into the water cup, Gatorade into the Gatorade cup, etc.
Store your cups in a safe spot.
Wait. Check your cups after a few hours if you want. We checked ours before we went to bed and then took them out after about 24 hours.

The Science

The hard shell of an egg protects the soft parts inside, just like the hard enamel on your teeth protect the soft and tender pulp on the inside. Both eggshells and teeth are made of calcium, a hard white substance that also makes up our bones.

Sugar and acids are very harmful to teeth. Acids actually dissolve the enamel, giving bacteria an inroad to begin decaying it, and sugar promotes decay (cavities).

Of course, the water egg was the best after 24 hours. But take a look at the Gatorade egg:

There was definitely a yucky-looking purplish coating on the egg, but it was fairly easy to wipe off with just our fingers. Unfortunately, the slime made the egg slippery and it fell on the floor before I was able to photograph it with the other eggs (in case you were wondering why there were only 3 eggs in the photos, now you know).

This was the black cherry pop egg:

And this was the grape juice egg: (I love the shock on Allie's face here.)

A study published in the journal General Dentistry found that pop is actually ten times more harmful in the minutes after drinking than is fruit juice. Our experiment showed that the discoloration from grape juice was a lot worse and longer-lasting, but it's not likely to cause actual decay as quickly as the pop would. So that part of the experiment was a little confusing.

The bottom line is that the sugar, color, and acids in our drinks harm our teeth, and those effects are exacerbated by poor brushing habits.

Extend the Experiment

Take this experiment a step further by brushing the eggs with a toothbrush and then with toothpaste and a toothbrush, to see how much of the stain can be removed from the egg and how much is left. It takes a lot longer than you think to clear away the stain, and you will probably find (as we did) that a lot of the stain is permanent.

More Cool Science Experiments for Kids

While you're here, check out a few of our other simple science experiments for kids:

I hope you enjoyed this fun science experiment for kids. With some basic materials and a day of waiting, you can show your children what their drinks to do to their teeth and give them an idea of how important it is to brush every day.