Egg and Soda Science Fair Experiment: Tooth Decay Project

Healthy teeth are essential for your overall health!

They make it a breeze for our mouths to form words and flash million-dollar smiles. This importance in our lives is why we must pay attention to a potentially adverse problem: tooth decay.

Are you having a hard time getting your child to brush their teeth? If so, it might be time to bring out the big guns by introducing the egg and soda science fair experiment to explore the concept of dental health.

Theoretically, a hard-boiled eggshell works similarly to the enamel on your child’s tooth. It protects the dentin (the soft inside of a tooth) from damage.

Unfortunately, some of our dietary habits make it difficult for the enamel to protect our teeth from damage. This science experiment will demonstrate the repercussions of our choices on our bodies, and why tooth health matters. Read on!

Egg and Soda Science Fair Experiment

What You Need

The good news is that the egg and soda science fair experiment doesn’t require a myriad of pricey supplies. They’re wallet-friendly and there’s the likelihood that you have most of them in your home. If not, they’re readily available online and can be delivered to your doorstep.

• Soda
• Water
• Three clear plastic cups
• Diet soda
• Toothpaste and a toothbrush
• Three white-shelled hard-boiled eggs

Before the Egg and Soda Science Fair Experiment

Start by talking to your child about the importance of dental hygiene practices that include brushing their teeth twice a day.

Ensure you explain how certain activities, drinks, and food, can damage and stain teeth. You’ll also want to delve into how the consumption of acidic drinks can erode tooth enamel.

Ask your child to name a few types of drinks that are detrimental to their teeth. They may list juice, soda, or coffee because of the acid and sugar.

Furthermore, you can ask your child to think of drinks that can boost the health of their teeth. They might answer water and milk.

You can also find out if they believe brushing after the consumption of some of the harmful drinks can lower the risk of damage to their teeth.

Explain the Egg and Soda Science Fair Experiment

To spark their curiosity and pique their interest, inform your child that you have a way of discovering the repercussions of leaving those harmful drinks on their teeth overnight.

With a boiled egg in hand, demonstrate how it resembles their teeth (a thin and sturdy outer shell and a soft inside). Take the time to explain the consequences of leaving the egg soaked in soda overnight, compared to water.

Additionally, consider various types of soda such as colas that have varying effects compared to their clear lemon-lime counterparts.

Another fun experiment I did with my son was the Cloud in a Bottle project. You’ll make clouds inside your house in a few different ways.

Perform the Egg and Soda Science Fair Experiment

It’s a straightforward experiment that can be performed by following the steps below.

1. Boil the eggs, ensuring you have a few extra ones if some of them crack during boiling. A cracked shell on your hard-boiled egg will alter the outcome of the experiment.
2. Help your child fill each of the plastic cups whereby one has water, another has diet soda, and the third contains regular soda.
3. Once the eggs have boiled have your child put one in each plastic cup then leave them overnight.
4. Check on the eggs the following day. You may need to pour out the liquid from each cup to examine how each egg has been affected. You’ll notice the egg in the cola has been stained.
5. Discuss the changes you notice in each egg. Ask your child what they believe occurred and the solution to get the eggs back to their original state.
6. Give your child some toothpaste and a toothbrush and have them attempt to brush the stains off the eggshell.

As a variation, you can boil a few additional eggs and add cups with coffee, clear soda, vinegar, and orange juice for comparison.

Understanding the Results of the Egg and Soda Science Fair Experiment

Each liquid provides essential information on how certain liquids negatively impact our teeth. The egg in water will have no changes because the acidity (pH) of water is close to your body’s resting PH. Water won’t break down your teeth, making it one of the healthiest liquids to consume.

Although the soda pop will result in softening of the outer shell of the egg, certainly not as much as vinegar. Most importantly, the soda pop will result in a discoloration of the white egg, particularly if the soda is dark. Its acid levels can result in the weakening or demineralization of the tooth enamel.

Lastly, the acidic level of vinegar is detrimental to your teeth during an acid attack. Every time you consume starch or sugar, the bacteria in your mouth utilize it to form the acid that is represented in a tooth decay experiment with vinegar.

The acidic vinegar breaks down the minerals in the eggshell just like acid does to the outer shell of your tooth. After a few days, there’s barely any shell left.

Preventing Tooth Decay

Aside from brushing your teeth every day, are there other ways to curb tooth decay? Although dentists recommend fluoride, how effective is it? You can find out by filling two clear jars with vinegar.

Then, coat one eggshell layer one eggshell entirely with gel fluoride toothpaste and put it in one jar, and put an uncoated eggshell in the second jar.

Keep an eye out for signs of decay on the uncoated eggshell as you note the condition of the coated eggshell. You shouldn’t notice decay on the coated eggshell.

The Takeaway

You and your child can learn two main things from this experiment. Firstly, the acid contained in soda and vinegar has the potential to severely erode tooth enamel.

Secondly, it takes more than just a few quick swipes with a toothbrush to get teeth spick-and-span. Therefore, incorporating healthy food choices in addition to brushing teeth every day with fluoride toothpaste is the key to preventing teeth erosion and decay.

Continue with the fun science experiments with some chemistry. Please take a look at our article full of fun and easy baking soda experiments for kids.