How hot is it?

You've heard the saying that it's hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk? Well today Reagan and I decided to test that theory. First, we did some research. I was pretty sure that it wasn't ACTUALLY hot enough to fry an egg, as the temperature needed has to be a constant 158 F. It's not QUITE that hot here--although Indiana is suffering a major heat wave. The heat index for today is supposed to be 107 degrees!

We started out with our materials: an egg, a piece of aluminum foil (folded up on the sides so the egg doesn't escape!) and a magnifying glass.


Reagan cracked the egg and I showed her how to focus the sun's rays so that it would "cook" the egg.


She did a great job..but it still wasn't enough to actually begin frying the egg.


We gave up after a few minutes and decided to let the sun do it's job. We left it on a level surface in the direct sunlight.


And after an hour, we checked it. Unfortunately the wind had blown our experiment over and the ants were beginning to attack. But if you look just closely enough, you'll see that the egg was actually beginning to coagulate.


Pretty cool, huh? So technically it's not QUITE hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk--but it's pretty darn close!

The Eggs-periment

This weekend our family visited the Imagination Station in Toledo, Ohio. It was a fun break and Reagan enjoyed the Dino Dig area immensely. I wish I could say I had pictures to share with you, but I forgot that my camera was in my bag (oy vey) and so....no pictures unfortunately.

HOWEVER, before we left to visit the museum, we checked out some cool science experiment ideas on their website and we were able to replicate this one at home.

First, take a glass and fill it with vinegar (they use white vinegar, all we had on hand was apple cider vinegar) and drop a raw egg into it (carefully!)


Next--the easy part (lol!) let it sit. Overnight our egg shell was completely eaten away by the acid in the vinegar (the acid eats the calcium in the shell). The scum you see floating on top of the vinegar is the calcium.


The membrane of the egg was still there so that the egg looked jelled..but it was still raw!


We let it sit a few more days and our egg began to swell because the membrane is permeable so vinegar was actually moving into our egg. We popped it open to show that it was still raw.


Reagan thought this was the coolest experiment. I bet your kids will too!