Doing the naked egg experiment is the perfect kitchen science experiment to teach kids how the cells in their body work. Kids will get an inside look into a raw egg by using common kitchen supplies to dissolve the shell right off of it! Then they will do an “eggsperiment” with the naked eggs to see how they change in different liquids. The naked egg project is perfect for an award-winning science fair project!
Safety Alert: Always make sure to wash your hands after handling raw eggs.
Making a Naked Egg
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We headed into the kitchen to gather the following supplies:
- Eggs
- Vinegar
- Food Coloring (optional)
- Different clear liquids (corn syrup, carbonated water, clear soda, salt water, sugar water, soapy water, etc.)
To make our naked egg we followed these directions:
- Immerse each egg in a cup of vinegar. We started out with four eggs, each in their own cup of vinegar. I’m glad we did four, because one accidentally broke, but we still had three to experiment with! The egg will float at the top and a bit will hover above the surface of the vinegar, which is just fine.
- Place the cups in the refrigerator. After about 24 hours check to see if the egg shell has completely dissolved. If not, drain the vinegar and add some fresh vinegar to each cup. You can even add 10 drops of food coloring per cup if you want a brilliantly colored naked egg!
We observed bubbles on the surface of the eggshell almost immediately. Those bubbles are carbon dioxide gas forming due to the reaction between vinegar (which is acidic) and the calcium carbonate egg shell. (Take a look at this amazing color changing fizzy reaction or the explosive film canister rockets to see other examples of an acid reacting with a base!) Over time the vinegar will completely dissolve the entire egg shell.
The Eggsperiment
Once we had our colorful naked eggs we experimented to see what would happen when we put them into other liquids besides vinegar. We chose to use salt water, Sprite, and corn syrup, since we had those on hand.
We placed one naked egg in corn syrup, one in Sprite, and the last naked egg in salt water. I labeled each jar, and left our naked egg project in the refrigerator for another day.
The first thing that impressed me was how fast the color from the egg in salt water leached out! Why do you think this happened?
The results were pretty cool. We ended up with two plump eggs and one egg that my three-year-old said “went flat”. The red dehydrated egg was the one we put into the corn syrup.
Osmosis Egg Experiment
The membrane of a cell (in this case, the egg) is semipermeable, meaning that small particles can go in and out of the cell while large particles stay out. Water and other nutrients (and food coloring) are small enough to travel in and out of the cell. When the concentration of water in the cell is different than the concentration of water outside of the cell, the water will move either in or out of the cell to balance the concentration inside and out. This is called osmosis.
Osmosis explains why the egg in the corn syrup shriveled up. Corn syrup has a very low concentration of water in it so some of the water from the inside of the egg traveled through the membrane into the corn syrup, making the egg cell shrink.
We learned that salt water and sugary soda have similar water concentrations as the inside of the egg since those two eggs stayed plump!
I took this naked egg experiment one step further, just to fulfill my own curiosity. I placed the red egg (the one that got dehydrated in corn syrup) into a cup full of water for another day. What do you think happened?
(I’ll tell you…it plumped right back up as water from the cup traveled back into the egg via osmosis. So cool!)
The Curious Kid’s Science Book
This experiment is one of over 100 from Asia Citro’s new book, The Curious Kid’s Science Book. She is the author of the blog Fun at Home With Kids, which is full of unique, colorful, educational, and safe activities for kids. If you enjoyed this experiment you will LOVE the other 100+ experiments in The Curious Kid’s Science Book.
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Your peeled eggs look great! I seem to have lost our other egg pics – I’m Pinning this :O)
They aren’t peeled. The shell dissolved in the first part of the experiment.
Hey thanks! I love your awesome blog. We are new to homeschooling so it’s nice to glean knowledge from somebody who has been doing it for awhile 🙂
I love this experiment! It’s always amazing how the membrane stays intact while the shell dissolves. And I LOVE your pictures…they look fantastic!!
Please forgive my dumbness. I am so new to science and trying to understand it. I don’t quite understand why the water left the egg to go into the corn syrup. Did any of the corn syrup go into the egg?
Hi Corrie, this is not a dumb question at all! I’m glad you asked.
Osmosis is kind of a weird concept. It’s all about the concentration of water. So you know that corn syrup is really thick and sugary and doesn’t contain much water. The inside of an egg, however, has a lot of water in it! So the water from inside the egg travels through the membrane to the corn syrup to try to equal out the concentration of water on each side of the egg membrane. Since the egg is losing water it deflates like a flat tire 🙂
I took that same red egg and placed it back in a jar of water after it had been deflated in corn syrup. Guess what? It plumped right back up. At that point, there was less water inside of the egg so water traveled back through the membrane into the egg to make the concentration equal, inside and out. Pretty cool!
Let me know if you have more questions or if this helped clear things up 🙂
What a colorful version of the egg experiment! I love this new book from Asia Citro as well! Thanks for sharing at the Thoughtful Spot!
This was awesome!! My son found this experiment to be a favorite. We did the vinegar, then corn syrup and then colored water. I will have to share with him the rest of the options you have here.
Are they eatable
The egg isn’t cooked so I wouldn’t eat it!
What a fun science experiment! I had no idea that corn syrup would do that to the egg. I’ll have to try this with my children. Thanks for sharing at the #Made4Kids Link Party!
This is just amazing. I had no idea of what the corn starch could do to the egg. I can’t wait to try this out with my daughter!
Thanks for sharing #Toddlerfun
FarZain
@sciencekiddo.comhttps://sciencekiddo.com//colorsofourrainbow.blogspot.ae/
Such a great idea. I always struggle to come up with simple science ideas. Thanks for sharing on #ToddlerFunFriday
Do I boil the egg first or are they straight from the fridge?
Straight from the fridge! That’s one of the things that makes it so cool…You don’t often get to see inside a raw egg!
Hi my daughter is doing a scientific inquiry project on naked eggs and she asked me for help and I didn’t understand it so can you help me understand.
Hi Lauryn, what specific questions do you have?
Do you use the eggs that were in the vinegar in the other liquids, or new eggs? I’m sorry if this is a dumb question 🙂
Not a dumb question at all! You use the eggs that were in the vinegar. The vinegar is what makes the shell dissolve, and then you can put those “naked eggs” in the other liquids to see how they change. It’s pretty cool!
Can u help me know why the egg in the salty water given its color out so immediately????
That’s a great question. I don’t actually know the answer! It was just an interesting observation we made.
It’s actually the same reason as the corn starch. Water in any living cell, including cells in a naked egg, also has some salt in it. The salt water on the outside of the egg is more salty and less water-y than the salt water on the inside of the egg, which is less salty and more water-y. Water moves from inside the egg cells to outside to balance out its concentration.
Do you have to refrigerator the eggs once they are inside the liquids?
Since the eggs are raw, yes, I do suggest keeping them in the refrigerator while they soak in the other liquids. Great question.
I would like to ask why do you have to put the eggs first in the vinegar?
So eggcited to try this with the Panda Daycare kids.
LOVE IT!
Hi
My son that is 6 picked this project for his science fair. I loved yours the most and we are so intrigued to see how it works out. I know some words are a lil hard for a 6 year old but he is a smart cookie and I hope we get it. I think I am the one that will need more help understanding this lol.
What would you say the difficulty level would be for this running of the grades 6th through 8th grade and is this a chemistry project or physics or neither? If these questions could be answered as soon as possible before November 27, 2017 that would be awesome.
This would definitely be an easy chemistry project for someone in grade 6-8. They learn about how vinegar reacts with the egg shell to produce carbon dioxide gas and how water flows through the egg membrane through osmosis.
Ok, so I may have a stupid question…What can be done with the eggs after the experiment? Should they be tossed? Or can something else be done with them?
I would just toss them. After soaking in vinegar and various other solvents I can’t imagine they would taste any good.
You know when working on a science fair project they always ask for a problem and hypothesis? Well me and my daughter understood the project..but I am having a hard time figuring out how to word the problem…would you have any suggestions….
Well, it depends on what you want to find out! So if you want to find out what happens to a naked egg when it’s submerged in different solutions you could word your problem, “Does a naked egg change when it’s submerged in different solutions?” Or if you want to find out what solutions will dissolve the shell from an egg your problem could be, “Which solution(s) dissolve an egg shell?” and try things like vinegar, bleach, lemon juice, tomato juice, water, etc.
This is the best experiences ever
do the eggs smell bad or rot once taken out the liquid ?
Not in my experience! But I only keep them around for a few days.
Is putting the eggs in the vinegar required? Or you could simply peel the eggs on your own?
You could definitely peel the eggs instead! It’s just fun to watch the vinegar dissolve the egg shell.
In our project, we are required to have a Hypothesis. What would the hypothesis be? We are having a little trouble trying to come up with one.
It really depends on what you are trying to find out. A hypothesis is just an educated guess about what you think may happen. So if you are experimenting to see what happens when you place a naked egg in corn syrup your hypothesis might be, “I think the egg will shrink in size when placed in a corn syrup solution.” You really need to zone in on the question you are trying to answer and then make a guess about what will happen. Does that make sense?
great project i won the science fair 👍👍
Woot Woot!
Do you color the liquids that you are placing the naked egg into ?
Yes, if you want a colored egg!
Hello i am a student and i am thinking about doing this experiment for my science fair project this is a very excting experment but i willl make the question which liquid will disolve the egg shell the quickest my teacher thinks its a good idea im in middle school and this is a very fun project
Awesome! Good luck!!
I love this project amazzing
hi crystal im doing this as a science fair project and it looks cool
I hope I win my science fair with this