A Close-up Look at Egg Shells: One Family's Science Experience

By Amy Cowen on April 1, 2013 6:00 AM

Family Science / Egg shell activity and experiment images

Before settling down to serious Easter egg-dyeing with her family, this cool science mom did the "How Does a Chick Breathe Inside Its Shell?" activity with her daughter (age 9) and her nephew (age 3). Eggs and three-year-olds can sometimes lead to a scrambled science experience, but with a few extra eggs on hand, the experiment was a success!

"Believe me, a three-year-old will introduce some experimental variation into the procedure," admits the mom. "It is tough to do before and after weights if a small boy has removed some of the shell!"

To put their family science experience into perspective, one egg out of five survived, but even that one gave both kids a chance to explore the science—and math—at hand. They weighed the eggs before and after boiling on a kitchen scale and recorded their data, which is great practice for keeping a science project lab notebook!

"In the end, my daughter disproved her hypothesis," says the science mom. But a hypothesis that doesn't hold up doesn't mean the experiment failed, it means something was learned—and they got to talk about why they observed what they did and puzzle through what the experiment demonstrated. Keeping in mind that firsthand exploration and learning is the goal of a family science activity and much more important than being right or having all the answers ahead of time is all part of doing science at home with kids. This mom did a great job!

In addition to the allure of the eggs themselves, using the magnifying glass to examine the pores in an egg shell was fun for both kids, says the mom. Not surprisingly, the younger student found his own side-exploration with the magnifying glass, too. "He used the magnifying glass to closely observe the large hole he made in a peeled egg he was eating!"

What a wonderful science activity with the kids to tie in with other eggy activities last week. Way to go!

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