Year 3 Tooth Decay Investigation

As part of our science topic this half term, we have been learning all about our teeth. The children are now teeth experts and know the names of each type of tooth as well as what their “job” is. We have also spent some time talking about how important it is to brush our teeth and why we need to do it every day. We found out what happens to our teeth if they don’t get cleaned – the build-up of plaque reacts with the sugars in food to create an acid that attacks the teeth!

Last week, we conducted an experiment using hard boiled eggs to act as the teeth – each egg was placed in a different liquid (coke, apple juice, vinegar, black current squash, milk and water) and left for a week to see if it had any effect on the shell.

Today, we started our observations of the eggs. We were all quite shocked at the results! The vinegar decayed the egg the most by entirely disintegrating the shell leaving us with a squishy egg, the coke cracked and discoloured the egg quite badly,  the apple juice left a slimy skin all over the shell, the squash stained and cracked the shell and the milk and water had little effect. This led to very interesting discussion and some good ideas for their conclusions. What an interesting and fun experiment, fantastic work Year 3!!

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