Homeschool Diary: Bone and Egg Experiment

Nuha has been learning about bones and calcium for science so we decided to do an experiment on that topic. It was a really simple but fascinating experiment and there are two variations of it. The first one uses a small bone and some white vinegar. Here are the instructions:

1. Fill a cup with enough vinegar to cover the bone.

2. Fully submerge the bone in the vinegar, cover the cup, and leave for a few days. You may be able to see some bubbles forming one the bone almost immediately. You also could have to change the vinegar before the few days are up.

3. After it has been four or five days take the bone out and see what has happened to it.

Our bone has gone bendy because the acid in the vinegar has reacted with the calcium in the bones and therefor the calcium content of the bones has depletes to such an extent that the bone is now bendy!!

Lack of calcium actually causes a medical disorder known as rickets.

The variation of this experiment is with an egg instead of a bone. This is quite different because the calcium in an egg is located in the shell. Here is how to do this experiment:

1. Fill a cup with enough vinegar to cover the egg.

2. Fully submerge the egg in the vinegar and leave for a few days. As with the bone the egg will get bubbles but our egg had a lot more than the bone. Also you may have to change the vinegar.

3. You may notice that the egg increases in size. This is because of osmosis which is why the process of water particles moving from an area of higher concentration to an area of lower concentration. The water comes from the vinegar and goes into the egg.

4. After four or five days take the egg our of the vinegar, measure it, and put it in a salt-water solution. The salt in the solution should make the water leave the egg and the egg should shrink.