🥚 Floating an egg in salt water: the whole packet

🥚 Floating an egg in salt water · 3rd–7th grade · 1 day of testing · free · 45 minutes a sitting

My days, if the fair is 14 days away

Count back from your fair day and write in each date. Fewer days than this? The jobs share days, in this order; nothing is skipped.

Dates from my teacher

• My question is due
• Testing starts
• My results table and graph are due
• My board is due

In this packet

1. 🗓️ My project plan
2. 💭 My hypothesis
3. 🧺 Change, measure, keep the same
4. 🪜 My steps
5. 📊 My results
6. 📓 My logbook
7. ✅ My conclusion
8. ✂️ Board titles to cut out
9. 🏅 The judge's questions and my certificate

If I change how much salt is in the water, then how high the top of the egg sits in the glass will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

5 levels × 3 tries at each = 15 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• 🥚 Eggs: 1 raw egg
• 🧂 Salt: about half a cup
• 🚰 Water from the tap
• 🥛 A measuring cup
• 🥄 Measuring spoons
• 🫙 A clear jar or tall glass: a tall clear glass
• 🥄 A spoon
• 📏 A ruler

Be safe: 🧼 Wash your hands after · 🚫 Test food is not for eating

1. Pour 2 cups of water into a tall clear glass.
2. Lower the egg in gently with a spoon, and measure how high its top is.
3. Lift the egg out and stir in 2 tablespoons of salt until it disappears.
4. Lower the egg in again and measure.
5. Keep going, 2 more tablespoons at a time, until you've added 8.
6. Pour it out and do the whole test two more times.
7. Wash your hands after touching the raw egg.
8. Draw a line graph: salt along the bottom, egg height up the side.

Write each number in your results table the moment you measure it.

I changed: Tablespoons of salt in 2 cups of water   I measured: how high the top of the egg sits in the glass (cm)

MY GRAPH (a line graph: tablespoons of salt in 2 cups of water along the bottom, cm up the side)

What I noticed: ______________________________________________

Write something every day you work on it, even the days you only gather things. More days? The three-page logbook prints from peabody.kids/science-fair/templates/logbook.

My hypothesis was ☐ right ☐ partly right ☐ not right.

I know because my numbers show:

What surprised me, or what might have gone wrong (7th and up):

Next time I would test:

Idea: Change a second thing: try sugar instead of salt, spoon for spoon, and draw both lines on one graph.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: how much salt does it take to float an egg?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing how much salt is in the water would change how high the top of the egg sits in the glass, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed how much salt is in the water (0 tablespoons, 2 tablespoons, 4 tablespoons, 6 tablespoons, 8 tablespoons) and measured how high the top of the egg sits in the glass in cm.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept the same egg and the same 2 cups of water the same, so only how much salt is in the water was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 3 times at each of my 5 levels, and I found the middle number.
6. What did you find out? Show me in your numbers. Say something like: Look at my table: 0 tablespoons and 8 tablespoons gave different numbers, and here's the pattern.
7. Was your hypothesis right? How do you know? Say something like: My numbers show whether I was right, partly right or not, and I can show you where.
8. Did anything go wrong, or surprise you? Say something like: One try was odd, so I did it again and wrote it in my logbook.
9. If you did it again, what would you change or test next? Say something like: I'd change a second thing: try sugar instead of salt, spoon for spoon, and draw both lines on one graph.