Floating Egg Experiment

This activity comes from: https://coolscienceexperimentshq.com/floating-egg/

Can you make an egg float in water?

Materials:

2 Eggs
2 Tall Drinking Glass
Salt
Water

Step 1

Fill a tall drinking glass about 3/4 full of water and carefully place the egg into the glass. What happens to the egg?

Make a prediction:

Do you think that the eggs will sink or float when placed in water? Do you think it’s possible to make them float? If so, how?

Step 2

Fill another tall drinking glass about 3/4 full of water.

Step 3

Add 3 Tablespoons of salt to the water and stir until it is completely combined.

Make a Prediction

What do you think will happen if you place the egg into the glass with the salt water?

Step 4

Next carefully place the second egg into the glass with the salt water. What happens to the egg?

The Science

The egg will sink in regular tap water because the density of the egg is greater than the density of water. The egg’s density is only slightly higher than water at 1.03 g/mL, but that is enough to make the egg sink.

When you add salt to the water, you are increasing the density of the water by adding more mass (or stuff) in the given volume. You don’t really change the volume of the water by adding salt. By adding enough salt, you increase the density of the water so that it is higher than the density of the egg and the egg will float!

The Floating Egg Science Experiment

This video shows how to do the experiment step-by-step!

Try this!

Try this experiment again, but instead of using an egg use a potato slice or a carrot slice. You will have to play around with the amount of salt you add to the water because all objects have their own unique density. Add salt a tablespoon at a time and mix well until you cannot see any salt in the solution, then add your object to see if it floats or sinks. Remove your object and keep adding salt until you can get your object to float. To make it a true science experiment, create a data table to keep track of how much salt you add to the solution.

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