Eggmosis – Osmosis with Eggs

Posted by on June 21, 2011

A 2-for-1 experiment; Day 1 is an Acid-Base Reaction, Day 2-3 is the Osmosis Portion. Though it covers 3 days, the entire time spent on the project is 15-45 minutes.

DAY 1:

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Dissolving the shell
1) Place 4 eggs in a container, cover with white vinegar.
2) Add some “fresh” vinegar (or just replace with fresh vinegar)after about 8-12 hours.
Vinegar is an ACID; eggshells are made of calcium carbonate (BASE).

 

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Reacting Acids and Bases
3) These are the eggs after about 2 hours. Look at all those CO2 bubbles!
4) You should have “naked eggs” (just the membranes) within 24-48 hours after starting
(For more on the chemistry: http://goo.gl/zOhCk)

 

DAY 2:

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Naked Eggs
1) Remove and gently rinse your naked egg under running water. Compare it to a fresh egg. It looks (and feels) MUCH different now that the shell is gone!

 

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2) Hold the egg up to light and look at the yolk. Boo said the egg feels like a water balloon.
3) Once the shell is off, the egg will get MUCH larger! This is due to osmosis – there is more water in the vinegar than in the egg. The water will diffuse from the area of high concentration (vinegar), into the area of low concentration (egg), across the membrane. Diffusion occurs until equilibrium occurs, (after that, exchange takes place at a steady rate).
(For an easy-to-follow definition and animation of diffusion and osmosis: http://goo.gl/IRxXi)

 

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Osmosis with Eggs
1. Label cups clearly for water, vinegar, and corn syrup.
2. Put one naked egg in each cup.

 

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3. Cover each egg with the appropriate liquid.

 

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Demonstrating Osmosis
Thing 2  helps Thing 1 demonstrate diffusion across a selectively permeable barrier. With Matchbox cars and a baby gate.*
After the demonstration, Thing 1 came up with his hypothoses:
1) The egg in corn syrup will shrink, because Corn syrup doesn’t have water in it. The water will diffuse from the egg into the syrup.
2) The egg in the vinegar will stay the same size, because it’s already been soaking in the vinegar long enough that it is in equilibrium (same concentration of water in AND out of the egg)
3) The egg in the water will get even bigger, since there is a higher concentration of water in the water (!) than in the egg.
*Large stuffed animals were also involved, but since this is a SELECTIVELY PERMEABLE barrier, they were unable to cross and stayed in a corner by themselves.
Edited: For that matter, the children are also unable to cross this particular selectively permeable barrier. Who says parenting isn’t a science.

 

DAY 3:

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Osmosis Eggs
Having soaked overnight, the eggs are dramatically different in size and feel.
1) The naked egg soaked in corn syrup is the smallest
2) The naked eggs soaked in vinegar and water aren’t significantly different from each other, visibly. However, you can tell a distinct difference by touch (the naked egg soaked in water is much more taut).
This observation seems to confirm Andrew’s hypotheses from yesterday, but the fun isn’t over yet!

 

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Observation

3. How are the eggs different? How are they similar? What do you think caused the differences?

 

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The egg soaked in corn syrup looks much different than the fresh egg, too.

 

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Breaking the Water Egg
Scientists always make the best of any “woops”. This is true.

 

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This surprised us! The absorbed water hadn’t been incorporated into the egg white or yolk. You can see the white and yolk intact in the middle of the huge splash of water. All of that water (plus the water on the boys’ shirts, plus the water on the floor) was inside the naked egg.

 

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Breaking the Vinegar Egg
Squeezing till the egg broke was a bit grosser than he expected it to be (sometimes science is messy).

 

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Breaking the Corn Syrup Egg
Because I’m the mean mommy, I didn’t let him squeeze this egg ’till it popped.
He *really* wanted to.

 

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More Observation

1) Look at the membrane (the consensus is that it feels like a flower petal).
2) Compare the volume of the broken Corn Syrup Egg to the volume of the broken Vinegar Egg. It’s pretty impressive; I wish we would have thought to measure the volume.

 

Who gets a Brownie Point? Did you notice we started with 4 Naked Eggs and finished with 3? That was my fault, not the kids!

49 Responses to Eggmosis – Osmosis with Eggs

  1. black tap

    Good information. Keep sharing more articles.

  2. Rudy Zicari

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  3. Cindy @ Holistic Health Traditions

    This looks great, thank you. I’m going to have my 9th grader do this.

  4. Skylar

    I really like your writing style, good info, regards for putting up :D. “Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men.” by Mortimer Adler.

  5. David

    I have not checked in here for a while as I thought it was getting boring, but the last several posts are good quality so I guess I will add you back to my everyday bloglist. You deserve it my friend 🙂

  6. Renee Schwartz

    Thanks for this great information. We really enjoyed doing this experiment! I do think you should have let him open up the membrane on the corn syrup egg. We found it fascinating! The yolk is dehydrated from so much water exiting the egg and heading to the greener pastures of the corn syrup, and you can see that it is smaller, darker, and thicker. The consistency is very different! http://switzerite.blogspot.com/2018/06/human-body-camp-day-6.html

  7. Leora Tofanelli

    I like the efforts you have put in this, regards for all the great posts.

  8. amiya

    what the website

  9. September Kocher

    Oh NO! Did she just have a miscarriage!?

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  11. Desarie

    Very nice experiment but my egg poped in the acetic acid

  12. Anonymous

    Very nice experiment but my egg poped in the acetic acid

  13. Jarod Ficklin

    How do I conceal my extended articles & blogs, outside leaving a enormous blank below the bottom?

  14. Phumelelo

    Thanks for info this will really help me in my experiment

  15. Paige

    Thank you this has been very helpful what a fun mom you must be

  16. Anonymous

    hi

  17. Anonymous

    Good job

  18. Anonymous

    that was AWESOME!!!!

  19. Naomi Durante

    Oh yeah and Sunny you should be nicer to her. She spent her time doing this for us. You should be happy. She didnt have to do this.

  20. Naomi Durante

    Wow. Surprisingly i did this in school. It was so fun. I understand i wanted to squeeze my egg til i tpopped too. But my teacher said no. Hey can you post one on how it affected the eggs. Thanks for posting this it was amazing

  21. LCJLOVESNARWHALZ

    Thank you, this helped a lot with my lab report for school!

  22. Shenise

    Stop saying that just because you can’t get it right

  23. charity Memo

    Thanks alot, it has really helped me

  24. bio.is.the.worst

    This actually helped though you could have been a little more clear. Very helpful though

  25. C.C

    Your awesome, you helped me understand the demonstration and the process of osmosis . With me being a college student and taking Anatomy and Physiology helps a lot.

  26. Zoe

    Yea they should do an experiment on growing and shrinking eggs

  27. carol

    this is a good way of learning biology and osmosis

  28. carol

    good expiriment

  29. Robin Pillow

    Excellent pieces. Keep posting such kind of information on your blog. Im really impressed by it.

  30. Chaina

    it is actually called diffusion when you use anything else but water. It is called osmosis when you use water.

  31. zariah schreiner

    thanks for info this will help me for science fair project!!!

  32. anonymous

    love it . many do this project in high school!but people don’t realize it can be made more simplistic than u thinks

  33. Anonymous

    Yass billy! slayy those eggs

  34. Anonymous

    Thanks!

  35. Needing Help

    We are doing something similar to this in our science class, but it is a 7-day time span. We have to write about the observations and what caused these steps to happen. Any help?

  36. Anonymous

    well me and my classes are doing the same thing and I just wanted to know what will happen in 3 day to the egg in the cup full of vinegar because I just want to know what will happen so yea :0

  37. Anonymous

    Woooooooooooooooooow out standing

  38. Anonymous

    Woooooooooooooooooow

  39. Anonymous

    hy gents tell me what is the aim of this project

  40. Anonymous

    9+10= 21

  41. Anonymous

    Thanks

  42. Anonymous

    Thank you so much for this! I will be trying this tonight! Hopefully it comes out right

  43. Renee

    This is so great! Thank you for writing it all up.

  44. Anonymous

    Very detailed with diffusion and helped me study for my final exam.
    GREAT INFO…

  45. mashayla bradley

    We finish the experiment and it was great to see what an egg and vinegar can do, i was so amazed

  46. Anonymous

    Thank you for the very detailed experiment I will be doing this for a project and hopefully it’ll come out right. 🙂

  47. Anonymous

    this is a great project.im in the 10th grade and im gonna do this…thanks!

  48. Sandra @ The Sensible Mom

    We are doing this experiment today! 🙂

  49. Anonymous

    Great thinking !! (Y)

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