What to do with leftover Easter eggs
Not sure what to do with the leftover hard-boiled Easter eggs? Try this "trapped eggs" experiment, courtesy of Jack and Jill magazine. Credit: Jack and Jill magazine
After hunting, what do you do with all of those leftover hard-boiled Easter eggs? Besides making egg salad, here’s a fun science experiment to try from "Jack and Jill" magazine: Use air pressure to suck an egg into an empty jar. Then help your kids figure out how to get the egg out.
Trapped eggs
What you'll need
- Glass jar with a narrow neck
- Peeled hard-boiled egg
- 4 matches
* Make sure an adult is assisting or performing this part of the activity.
Peel the hard-boiled egg. Place four lit matches, one at a time, into glass jar. Quickly place the egg on top of the neck of the jar. Poof! Where’s the egg?
What happened?
The egg got sucked into the glass jar. The difference in air pressure outside the bottle versus that inside the bottle forced the egg into the glass jar. When the matches were lit, the air inside the glass jar heated and expanded. Some of the heated air escaped out of the glass jar. When the matches went out, the air inside the glass jar cooled, lowering the air pressure inside the glass jar. The air pressure on the outside of the jar was higher and forced the egg into the glass jar.
Now, how do you get the egg out? Let the kids experiment with different solutions to this problem. The solution: Tilt the jar and blow air into it.
