experiment egg drop

• Grades 6-12
• School Leaders

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26 Egg-cellent Egg Drop Challenge Ideas

Teaching STEM one broken egg at a time.

The egg drop may be the most versatile activity there is. It can be done in kindergarten to teach about gravity, in middle school to teach engineering, and in high school physics. (We’ve even done the egg drop in professional development as a team-building activity). These 26 egg drop ideas take the challenge far beyond basic.

1. Disaster egg drop

Have students imagine that they are trying to deliver eggs to people who have been in a disaster. They must use contents from care packages to pack and try to deliver their eggs. The focus of this egg drop is on the change from potential to kinetic energy and how energy moves when it impacts the ground.

Try it: Care Package Egg Drop at Teach Engineering

2. Parachute egg drop

Looking for tried-and-true ideas for the parachute egg drop method? Give students a variety of materials—straws, Popsicle sticks, paper, bags—and see who can make a parachute that helps the egg float instead of splat.

Try it: Egg Parachutes at JDaniels4mom.com

3. Humpty Dumpty drop

First, decorate an egg like Humpty Dumpty (smiley face, overalls). Then, fill baggies with different materials like water beads, sand, pasta, and cotton balls. Drop Humpty in and see which material protects him the best.

Try it: Humpty Dumpty Drop at I Heart Crafty Things

4. Hot-air balloon egg drop

Connect a “basket” to a balloon with yarn and see whether or not the balloon will float gently enough so the egg doesn’t break. You may try this in different types of weather to see what happens to the balloon and egg when it’s windy or not.

Try it: Gravity Drop at Science Sparks

5. Crash cart egg race

In this version of an egg drop, build a cart for an egg, then send each egg down a ramp or course to see if the cart will protect the egg. ADVERTISEMENT

6. Cereal egg drop

Another lesson in how energy gets absorbed. Place an egg in a can, and surround the can with a soft cereal, like puffed rice.

Try it: Cereal Egg Drop on Pinterest

7. Dodecahedron egg drop

Create a dodecahedron out of straws, place an egg in the middle, and drop it. Will the straw structure protect the egg enough for it not to break? Bonus: Students learn about geometry and dodecahedrons.

Try it: Straw Egg Drop at Sciencing

8. Styrofoam cup egg drop

Use Styrofoam cups to create a stack around the egg. Place a heavy rock in the bottom of the first cup (the rock should be heavier than the egg). Then, put six more cups on top, put the egg into the seventh cup, and cover the stack with the eighth. Tape the stack together and drop.

Try it: Styrofoam Egg Drop at Educational Insights

9. Rubber band suspension egg drop

Suspend an egg using rubber bands and pantyhose for protection. Will the egg bounce and wiggle or crack on impact?

10. Paper straws egg drop

Sometimes having limited materials brings out students’ creativity. Give students nothing but an egg, paper, and scissors, and see what they can come up with.

Try it: Paper Egg Drop at iGameMom

11. Pringles can egg drop

A Pringles can is the perfect size and shape to protect an egg. Use cushioning and pencils to hold the egg in place.

12. Sponge egg drop

Cut a hole in the middle of a sponge and fit the egg into the hole. Then, use straws and tape to secure the egg and see if the sponge will soften the blow.

Try it: Sponge Egg Drop at Green Kid Crafts

13. Paper bag parachute

Looking for more ideas that incorporate parachutes in your egg drop challenge? Place the egg in a red Solo cup with some cushioning (shredded paper, cotton). Then, attach a plastic bag to the cup and launch it in a place where the wind can catch the bag.

Try it: Plastic Bag Parachute Egg Drop at There’s Just One Mommy

14. Toilet paper and duct tape egg drop

Tuck an egg into a roll of toilet paper, pack with cotton balls, and cover with duct tape. You could use this strategy to drop the egg, or roll it down an obstacle course.

15. Oobleck-wrapped egg challenge

For a mult-step approach, make oobleck and cover the egg in oobleck. Then, put the egg in a cup that includes a soft packing material (mini-marshmallows, cotton balls). Cover the top with plastic wrap or tape and get ready to drop.

16. Ship egg drop

Give students a collection of materials and challenge them to make ships to protect their eggs. Some materials:

• Popsicle sticks or tongue depressors
• Rubber bands
• Pipe cleaners
• Cotton balls
• Sandwich bags

Try it: Ship Egg Drop at Cool Science Dad

17. Pool noodle egg drop

What can’t you do with pool noodles? Cut pool noodles into parts and use duct tape, rubber bands, and other materials to create soft, spongy pods for eggs.

Try it: Pool Noodle Egg Drop at Steam Powered Family

18. Toilet paper roll egg drop

Use toilet paper rolls as pillars to support and protect an egg, then use a sponge and rubber bands to hold it together. The big question with this egg drop is whether it will float down or crash.

Try it: Toilet Paper Egg Drop at Science Struck

19. Water bag egg drop

What happens if you put eggs in a bag full of water? Have students hypothesize whether the eggs will break based on how much water is in the bag.

Try it: Water Bag Egg Drop at Oregon State University

20. Reinforcement egg drop

Talk about what it means to reinforce an object, then provide students with different ways to reinforce an egg in boxes or jars (or jars and boxes).

Try it: Reinforcement Egg Drop at Living Digitally

21. Floam-covered egg

Cover an egg in floam and see if it provides enough cushioning to break the fall. If you don’t have floam, you can also try kinetic sand, play dough, or anything that will cover the egg and absorb the impact.

Try it: Floam Egg Drop at Momtastic

22. Peanut butter jar egg drop

Tuck an egg in a peanut butter jar, pack it with tissues, and secure in a box.

Try it: Peanut Butter Jar Egg Drop at Momtastic

23. Balloon bomb egg drop

Surround the egg in balloons filled with beads to provide a softer landing.

24. Another balloon bomb

Hollow out a floral foam disc and tuck the egg inside. Then, add balloons to soften the landing.

Try it: Balloon Bomb Egg Drop at The Caffeinated Homeschoolista

25. Bungee egg drop

This activity isn’t an egg drop, per say. Students use rubber bands to create a bungee jump for an egg and predict how many rubbers bands they will need for the egg to drop a certain length (maybe six feet). For students who are well versed in the egg drop, this is a fun spin on the idea.

Try it: Bungee Egg Drop at Museum of Science and Industry

26. Backyard egg drop

Looking for ideas to make the egg drop project more challenging? Ask students to find materials in nature—sticks, leaves, an abandoned bird’s nest—to create their egg drop structures.

Try it: Nature Egg Drop at Dream Big at Home

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Egg Drop Project

Can You Drop an Egg without Breaking It? The egg drop challenge is a classic but it never ceases to amaze the kids, and I am always amazed with their ingenuity! With STEM we are always working to build creativity, problem solving skills, curiosity, and a passion for experimentation and learning. The Egg Drop Project is the perfect Summer STEM project for developing all of those areas. So let’s dig into this wildly popular activity.

Egg Drop Project Ideas

What you will discover in this article!

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With an egg drop project it always seems like the contraptions that you’re sure will fail, somehow keep that egg perfectly safe. Then the ones that seem indestructible, end up with egg all over! What makes a good egg drop experiment in my mind is a little bit of direction and a lot of freedom. Kids will copy just about anything you show them, but given the freedom to problem solve on their own is always a joy to watch.

I highly recommend doing this project outside or somewhere that allows for easy clean up. Dropped eggs can really splatter everywhere! You may also want to avoid this activity on really hot, sunny days, to avoid the splattered raw egg cooking before you can clean it up. If you want to try cooking some eggs on those hot days, check out our Solar Oven Project .

Egg Drop Project Supplies

What Do We Need?

Raw Eggs (and lots of them!)

Plastic Easter Eggs (optional but great for the planning and prep work)

Building Materials , this is where you want to raid your tinker kits , recycling bins, cupboards and really encourage kids to get creative! Here are a few ideas to get you started.

• Cut up Pool Noodles
• Cardboard Tubes
• Cardboard boxes (smaller ones, like shoe boxes or tissue boxes)
• Plastic containers (like yogurt containers)
• Packing Peanuts or other packing materials
• Rubberbands
• Plastic Cups
• Zip Top Bags
• Craft Sticks
• Cotton Balls
• Old shirts or pieces of fabric

You may also need:

Tape (clear tape, duct tape) Glue (school glue, glue sticks, glue gun) Scissors Hobby knife Markers

Inquiry Questions for Students

Start with some questions and a conversation to get your kids thinking like scientists and STEMists. Also, don’t be afraid to have kids use the Scientific Method to reinforce learning this powerful approach to experimentation.

Here are some questions and conversation prompts for you.

What happens when you drop an egg? This is a great time to talk about potential and kinetic energy.

What will happen if I drop an egg on the floor? If you’re feeling brave you could even drop an egg and let them see the mess and how fragile the shell is!

What causes the egg to break when it hits the ground?

What might we be able to do to prevent an egg from breaking? How can we protect it?

Could you build a contraption that would protect an egg? What would that look like?

What are some important things that you should consider when building?

You could also explore the parts of the egg and challenge kids to make Bouncy Eggs using chemistry . This could be a fun experiment to do, while doing the egg drop project. The result is an egg with no shell that bounces. A super cool experiment to do with the Egg Drop.

Science Vocabulary

This is a perfect opportunity to talk about some science vocabulary and the physics behind the egg drop!

Potential Energy: The energy an object may have based on its size and position.

Kinetic Energy: The energy of motion.

Gravity: The force that pulls objects to earth.

Velocity: How fast an object moves as it falls.

Momentum: the way an object will speed up as it is falling and continue until it meets an outside force – like the ground.

Collision: When two objects run into one another causing a change in energy and momentum.

Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion: Action & Reaction: For every action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. If an object (egg) exerts a force on another object (the ground), the ground also exerts an equal and opposite force on the egg. For more projects on Newton’s Laws check out Balloon Rocket Physics or our Pinball Machine Project .

Egg Drop Project Step 1 – Design

I like to have students draw out their designs – making note of what they think is important to protect the egg. I let them look at the materials we have to work with so they have some direction. Some things to take into consideration are how can we slow the fall of the egg once it is released and how might we be able to protect the egg once it hits the ground. Once they have their design they need to bring me a materials list of what they need to build their design.

Egg Drop Project Step 2 – Build

Students are given a plastic egg for measuring purposes and the materials that they requested. I give them a set amount of time to build. It is good to stress here that they need to be able to remove their plastic egg and add an actual egg before the drop. The build process will inevitably present issues that the students will need to work with and adapt. This is all part of the process and encourages students to problem solve as they go.

Egg Drop Project Step 1 – Test

This is the fun part – I had students drop their eggs over a 2nd story railing. (With supervision at the top and bottom!) Sometimes you will hear a crack, but other times there is a lot of anticipation to see the results when you reveal the inside of the egg drop designs.

This part is always exciting! It’s a great time to ask students some questions. Do they predict the egg survived or not? How did the fall or the landing influence your prediction?

Then gather round and check the eggs!

It’s always funny to me how this turns out – the one contraption this time that I was sure would fail was by far the best egg drop design this year. This particular student had no interest in the suggestions of his classmates and simply wrapped the egg in pieces of pool noodle and rubber bands. The student didn’t really listen and hurled the egg over the railing rather than dropping it – I was sure we would all be covered with egg yolk and surprisingly his contraption just bounced and the egg was perfectly fine. While the student who made a meticulous soft cocoon of cotton balls and had a parachute to slow her fall ended up with a broken egg.

If you would really like to check out an amazing egg drop experiment that might not go the way you would think – check out the Egg Drop project using Oobleck – it’s a really cool out of the box way to try this challenge!

Egg Drop Final Step: Revise and Retest

I really enjoy leaving time to revise and retest designs whenever possible. It really helps encourage a growth mindset in the students – it’s the definite power of yet!

Have a blast with this classic STEM challenge with your students!

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Activity Length

45 mins. (20 min. for drop), forces and motion, activity type, exploration.

In this exploration, students design, evaluate, test, and suggest improvements for a container that will protect their precious payload: an egg.

The Classic "Egg-Drop" experiment has been a standard in science instruction for many years. Essentially, students are asked to construct some type of container that will keep a raw egg from cracking when dropped from ever-increasing elevations.

There are three basic ways to increase the likelihood of safely dropping an egg:

• Slow down the descent speed . Parachutes are an obvious method for slowing the decent speed, as long as the design includes a way to keep the parachute open.
• Cushion the egg so that something other than the egg itself absorbs the impact of landing. The largest end of the egg has an area of air trapped between the egg's two membranes. This air space forms when the contents of the egg cool and contract after the egg is laid. It accounts for the crater you often see at the end of a hard-cooked egg. Upon impact the heavier spherical yolk continues moving towards the ground. The compression of the airspace acts like an air bag for the eggs' valuable contents. Building an artificial cushioning device will also help absorb the impact of landing. The largest end of the egg has an area of air trapped between the egg's two membranes. This air space forms when the contents of the egg cool and contract after the egg is laid. It accounts for the crater you often see at the end of a hard-cooked egg. Upon impact the heavier spherical yolk continues moving towards the ground. The compression of the airspace acts like an air bag for the eggs' valuable contents. Building an artificial cushioning device will also help absorb the impact of landing.
• Orient the egg so that it lands on the strongest part of the shell. The arch structure at either end of the egg is stronger than its sides. Pressure is distributed down (or up) the arches so that less pressure acts on any one point. Orienting the arch downwards will increase the egg's survival.

The Challenge: On August 22, 1994, David Donoghue threw an egg out of a helicopter onto a golf course in the UK, from a height of 213 meters (700 feet). He now has the record for the longest egg drop without breaking in the world (all without an outside structure for added protection!).

Teacher Tip: You can relate the activity to the challenge NASA scientists had in building a lander for the Mars Exploration Rover. Physically, it had to withstand both the heat of entry into the Martian atmosphere and the impact of landing. Strategically, they also had to figure out a way that the rover could right itself no matter how it landed. Students love to see how the structure they've built often resembles the one conceived by NASA scientists.

Demonstrate curiosity and show inventiveness.

Brainstorm in a team to generate ideas.

Use problem-solving strategies in building simple structures.

Per Class: large plastic sheet/tarp/vinyl tablecloth ladder (optional)

Per Group of 2–3 students: 1 extra-large egg 1 bag of materials (may include cardboard cup, string, tape, balloons, straws, etc.) 2 sheets of scrap paper and 2 pencils

Key Questions

• What was successful/unsuccessful in your design?
• What makes an egg a good ‘subject’ for the drop experiments?

Preparation:

• Scout out accessible locations around the school for the egg drop at different heights.
• Make enough bags of materials for student groups.

Exploration:

• Challenge the students (in teams of 2–3) to build a structure in 40 minutes that will prevent an egg from breaking when dropped from a high place. Brainstorm ways to increase the likelihood of safely landing their eggs.
• Each group gets a bag of materials, 2 pencils, and 2 sheets of scrap paper.
• The students cannot assemble anything for the first 10 minutes. This time is to be used to brainstorm and to draw a mockup of their structure on the scrap paper provided.
• When the 10 minutes is up, circulate around the class to ensure that the students have thoughtfully mocked up their landers.
• Place the eggs in individual egg holders and hand out to the teams. Remind students that they cannot use the egg holder as part of their design.
• Drop the eggs from a launch point into the drop zone, which is protected by a plastic sheet, ensuring that each lander is dropped from the same distance.
• Once dropped, the students check out the egg to see if it has broken or if there are any cracks.
• The team whose egg survives the highest drop wins.

Teacher tips 

• The teacher should be the one to launch the eggs to ensure fairness and to reduce the risk of injury (if dropping from a high distance).
• Many of the supplies in this activity can be collected and reused!
• How would you modify your design to make it better? Present your revised mock-up to the class.
• Assign prices to each craft item and give students a budget. Students come to the “store” with their designs and the teacher hands out the materials they’ve requested.
• Show the students the Mars Exploration Rover landing video .

About the sticker

Artist: Jeff Kulak

Jeff is a senior graphic designer at Science World. His illustration work has been published in the Walrus, The National Post, Reader’s Digest and Chickadee Magazine. He loves to make music, ride bikes, and spend time in the forest.

Comet Crisp

T-Rex and Baby

Artist: Michelle Yong

Michelle is a designer with a focus on creating joyful digital experiences! She enjoys exploring the potential forms that an idea can express itself in and helping then take shape.

Buddy the T-Rex

Science Buddies

Artist: Ty Dale

From Canada, Ty was born in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1993. From his chaotic workspace he draws in several different illustrative styles with thick outlines, bold colours and quirky-child like drawings. Ty distils the world around him into its basic geometry, prompting us to look at the mundane in a different way.

Western Dinosaur

Time-Travel T-Rex

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Science Fun

• 20 oz drinking glass
• cardboard toilet paper roll
• Ice (optional)
• Space where your family is okay with you doing the experiment because you may crack a few eggs the first couple of tries

Instructions:

• Fill the glass with water
• Place a pie pan right side up on top of the glass
• Place toilet paper roll vertically in the middle of the pie pan
• Balance egg on top of the toilet paper roll so the egg is lying on it’s side
• Once everything is balanced on top of each other, with one swift and quick motion hit the side of the pie pan with your hand. This is a horizontal swing, not a vertical swing. This needs to be enough force to push it off the glass.
• Watch in amazement as your egg falls into the glass unbroken.

VIDEO COMING SOON BUT YOU CAN STILL ENJOY THESE AWESOME EXPERIMENTS!

How it Works:

It’s all about Inertia! Inertia says an object, the egg in this case, will stay at rest, unless an outside force acts upon it, your hand in this case. When you move the pie pan with your hand, gravity takes over and pulls the egg straight down into the glass of water.

Extra Experiments:

• Try adding food coloring to the water, just for a fun effect.
• Try boiling the egg first, does it still work? Why or why not?
• Don’t use the toilet paper roll, does the experiment still work? Why or why not?

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Next experiment.

Egg Drop Project

This is the classic egg drop experiment. Students try to build a structure that will prevent a raw egg from breaking when dropped from a significant height. They should think about creating a design that would reduce the amount of energy transferred from potential to kinetic energy on the egg shell. Some ways to do this would be to decrease the final speed of the egg using air resistance, increasing the time of the collision using some sort of cushion, transferring the energy into something else, or whatever else they can think of!

Each group of students gets the following:

• 2 small paper cups
• 1 sq ft of cellophane
• 4 rubberbands
• 4 popsickle sticks
• 2 ft of tape
• 1 egg (not provided)

Subjects Covered

• Energy Conservation

Provided by requester

• One egg for each student group
• Floor covering (Ex: Newspaper, Tarp)

Provided by us

• Small paper cups
• Rubberbands
• Popsickle sticks

Physics Behind the Demo

The Egg hitting the ground is a collision between the Earth and the Egg. When collisions occur, two properties of the colliding bodies are changed and/or transferred: their Energy and Momentum . This change and transfer is mediated by one or many forces . If the force is too strong, it can cause the shell of the egg to crack and break.

Momentum Transfer and Impulse (no Calculus)

Starting with the definition of Force a and knowing that acceleration is just the change in velocity over the change in time

$$ \textbf{F}=ma=m\cdot{\frac{\Delta v}{\Delta t}} $$

If we move the $\Large \Delta t $ to the left side of the equation we can see how Force is related to momentum

$$ \textbf{F} \cdot{\Delta t}=m \cdot{\Delta v}$$

This means that the Force multiplied by the change in time, or duration of a collision, is equal to the mass multiplied by the change in velocity. Momentum (p) is defined as the mass multiplied by the velocity so the right side is the change in momentum. This change in momentum is the Impulse ( J )

$$ \textbf{J}= \textbf{F} \cdot{\Delta t}=\Delta \textbf{p}$$

a: In this case we are actually talking about the average force, but to keep things simple we will just call it the force.

Momemtum Transfer and Impulse (Calculus)

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Playing With Rain

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Egg Drop Experiment

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Would you dare place an egg on top of a tower and then make the tower collapse under the egg to make the egg fall!? Call us crazy, but that is exactly what we did in this Egg Drop Experiment and the result was pretty cool!

Find more Egg Experiments For Kids here!

The best thing about this nerve-racking egg dropping experiment is that it makes learning about gravity and inertia both fun and educational for kids!

Table of Contents

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Supplies Needed:

• 1 Egg (Raw or boiled depending on how brave you are)
• Clear Glass Cup
• Plastic Plate
• Cardboard Toilet Paper Roll or Paper Towel Roll

Egg Drop Challenge

• Fill a clear glass cup about three-quarters full of water.
• Place a plastic or paper plate on top of the glass.
• Stand an empty cardboard toilet paper roll on the plate.
• Place an egg on the top of the cardboard roll.
• Quickly but carefully knock the plate out from under the cardboard tube and egg.
• Watch and enjoy as the egg falls straight down into the water-filled cup!
• Repeat the steps again but this time make a bigger tower by replacing the toilet paper roll with a paper towel cardboard roll.

Step 1: Pour Some Water Into a Glass

To get started you need to grab a tall cup or glass and fill it about 3/4 of the way full of water. If you fill the glass with too much water then you will end up with a lot of water to clean up when the egg splashes into the glass.

If you do not add very much water, then you run the risk of the egg breaking open when it lands in the cup after the tower collapses.

It’s also a good idea to use a clear glass cup to make it easy to see the egg when in crashes into the cup. If you don’t have a clear glass though you can substitute for any other tall cup.

Step 2: Set a Plastic Plate on Top of The Glass

After filling the glass with some water, place a plastic plate on top of the water-filled cup. You can also use a metal pan for this, but it is very important not to use a glass plate or anything breakable for this part!

Make sure to center the middle of the plate directly over the glass of water. This plate will be the platform for the tower we are going to build next.

Step 3: Place a Cardboard Toilet Paper Roll on the Plate

Using a cardboard roll from an empty roll of toilet paper, stand it up on the plate that is over the cup of water.

Again, you want to make sure the carboard cylinder is directly in the middle of the plate and centered over the glass of water below.

Step 4: Set an Egg on Top of the Cardboard Roll

Now it’s time to grab an egg and carefully set it on the very top of your tower you created using the glass of water, plate, and cardboard tube.

The egg should be large enough to sit on the top of the carboard tube without falling through the inside of the tube, but be very careful not to tip the tube over while placing the egg on top.

This experiment will work with either a raw egg or a boiled egg. It is up to how brave you are feeling if you want to risk the experiment going wrong and having a raw egg breaking open on you or not!

Step 5: Knock the Plate Out From Under The Tube and Egg

This is honestly the scariest part, but it is also where the fun and excitement of this egg drop experiment begins!

Now that your tower is all put together with an egg sitting on the top, it’s time to knock the plate and carboard tube out from under the egg and see what happens to the egg.

Do you think the egg will fly off to the side in the direction of the plate and carboard tube it was sitting on, or will the end fall straight down and splash into the cup of water below!?

To find out the answer, gently but quickly knock the plate out from under the cardboard tube and the egg.

Whatever direction that you push the plate out of the way, make sure it’s not going to hit and break something else. This is why we use a plastic plate for this step!

Step 6: The Egg Will Fall Down into the Water Filled Cup

Watch and enjoy as the plate and cardboard tower fly off to the side, but the law of inertia and gravity work together to make the egg miraculously drop straight down and plop into the cup filled with water below!

You will probably notice a few splashes of water on the table from the impact of the egg dropping into the cup, but egg should remain unbroken in the cup of water!

Step 7: Do it Again, but Use a Paper Towel Roll To Make the Tower Taller

Since we had some success with our first try at this super cool egg drop experiment, its time to take to to the next level with a taller tower this time!

To do this, repeat the steps of building the tower on top of a glass-filled 3/4 of the way with water, but this time substitute the toilet paper cardboard tube for an empty paper towel tube.

This will make the tower about twice as tall as before and could make the egg drop challenge and bit more tricky!

Go ahead and place the egg on the tower, knock the plate out from underneath and see what happens to your egg as it falls from an even higher altitude than before!

If all goes well, then your egg should still fall straight down and land safely in the cup of water. The water will act as a cushion to the impact of the egg falling and should again keep your egg from cracking!

Egg Drop Experiment Explanation

This amazing egg drop experiment is only possible because of Newton’s law of inertia.

This law states that an object in a resting stage will stay in a resting stage or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by another force.

The egg on the top of our tower falls straight down into the cup of water because it was already sitting in a resting stage.

As my hand (another force) moved the plate and tower out from under the egg, the egg was pulled straight down into the cup thanks to gravity.

Even though the egg falls at an incredible speed, the water in the cup acts as a shock absorber and cushions the impact of the egg into the glass. This is what protects the egg and keeps it from cracking!

PIN THIS EXPERIMENT FOR LATER

More Fun Experiments For Kids:

• Cloud in a Bottle Experiment With Rubbing Alcohol
• How To Make An Ocean In A Jar
• Dancing Grapes Experiment

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MORE ABOUT PLAYING WITH RAIN

Egg Drop Lab

Students work in teams to design a container for an egg using provided materials. Students drop their containers, then analyze factors which can minimize force on the egg.

Optionally, students can complete a second round of the experiment if time permits. Students work in teams to design a container for an egg using provided materials.

Lesson Files

• Egg Drop Guidelines (.docx)
• Explore Momentum and Impact Force in an Egg Drop (.docx)
• Explore Momentum and Impact Force in an Egg Drop (.pptx)

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Additional DCIs in This Strand

Materials needed for this lesson plan.

• Straws, set of 250
• Bag of Cotton Balls
• Popsicle Craft Sticks (100 pieces)
• Scotch Tape
• Gallon Ziplock Bags

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Awesome Egg Drop Ideas

Take the egg drop challenge for an awesome   STEM project for young kids and older ones! Read on to find out how the egg drop challenge works and what the best materials are for an egg drop, and grab the free printable guide.

Take the Egg Drop Challenge

Create your own egg drop designs to protect your egg from breaking when it is dropped from a height. 

Egg drop challenges are super cool and make for terrific STEM activities! I have been waiting to do a classic egg drop project for some time with my son but felt like he was too young.

The goal of the egg drop challenge is to drop your egg from a height without it breaking when it hits the ground.

Most egg drop projects use many loose materials, design making, and tinkering that my son isn’t ready for yet. I thought we could expand on it by using materials in our kitchen to protect the eggs including ziptop bags to control the mess.

What else can you do with eggs? Watch the video!

Grab the FREE Printable Egg Drop Worksheets!

What are the Best Materials for an Egg Drop?

We have two versions of this egg drop challenge below, one for older and younger kids. Do you need real eggs? Usually, I would say yes, but given the circumstances, how about candy-filled plastic eggs ? If you don’t want to waste food for any reason, don’t! Find a workaround instead.

Egg Drop Ideas for Older Kids

Older kiddos will love coming up with ideas to protect the egg in an egg drop. Certainly, egg drop designs can be more involved the older a kid gets, making this a great activity to try each year. Some materials they may want to use…

• Packaging materials
• Old T-shirts or rags
• Recycling container goodies
• And so much more!

Here’s a past year’s winner in the egg drop challenge! It even included a plastic bag parachute!

Egg Drop Ideas for Younger Kids

You will need eggs and plastic zip top bags to contain the mess! How many is up to you? We had seven bags left, so we came up with six items from around the kitchen to fill the bags and protect the eggs and one with nothing.

I tried to pick items that weren’t too wasteful, and we had a few expired and unused items in the pantry. Some materials you could use to protect the egg…

• paper towels
• dry cereal {we used very old wheat puffs}

Best Egg Drop Design Ideas

Here are ten simple egg-drop design ideas for kids to try.

TIP: Tape and rubber bands are great to have on hand for securing constructions.

1. Parachute Design

Attach a parachute made from a plastic bag or thin fabric to slow down the descent of the egg. Experiment with different parachute sizes and shapes.

Materials: Plastic bags, fabric scraps, tissue paper.

2. Cup and String Contraption

Suspend the egg inside a cup using strings or rubber bands. The cup absorbs some of the impact, and the strings provide additional support.

Materials: Paper cups, rubber bands, string or yarn.

3. Bubble Wrap Encasement

Wrap the egg in several layers of bubble wrap to provide cushioning and protection. Secure the bubble wrap with tape.

Materials: Bubble wrap, packing peanuts, tissue paper.

4. Straw Structure

Create a protective structure using straws. Arrange the straws to form a cage around the egg, leaving enough space for the egg to be cradled safely.

Materials: Plastic or paper straws.

5. Balloon Cushioning

Inflate a balloon and tape it securely around the egg. The balloon acts as a cushion during the fall.

Materials: Regular balloons.

6. Cotton Ball Padding

Surround the egg with a thick layer of cotton balls or cotton padding. This can absorb some of the impact forces upon landing.

Materials: Cotton balls, cotton pads, sponge, foam padding.

7. Foam Container

Place the egg inside a small foam container, such as a foam cup or takeout container. The foam absorbs and disperses the impact energy.

Materials: Plastic containers, foam cups, paper cups, small boxes.

8. Paper Mache Shell

Create a protective shell for the egg using paper mache. The hardened shell provides a protective barrier against impact.

Materials: Newspapers, flour, water.

9. Cardboard Tube Construction

Use cardboard tubes (toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls) to create a protective structure around the egg. Arrange the tubes to form a cradle for the egg.

Materials: Cardboard sheets, cardboard tubes.

10. Feathered Landing

Attach feathers to the egg to slow down its descent. The feathers create drag, reducing the speed at which the egg falls.

Materials: Bird feathers or craft feathers.

Remember to encourage students to test and refine their designs. They can vary the drop height or make adjustments to improve the performance of their egg drop contraptions. Additionally, discussing the science behind each design choice can add to the learning experience.

5 Ways To Extend The Challenge

Want to turn this fun science activity into a science fair project? Check out these helpful resources.

• Easy Science Fair Projects
• Science Project Tips From A Teacher
• Science Fair Board Ideas

Investigate Different Types Of Materials

Get students to design a container for the egg using various materials like paper, cardboard, plastic, and foam. Then, compare which material offers the best protection.

Shape Experiment

Explore the impact of the shape of the container on the egg’s safety. Students can create different shapes, such as cubes, spheres, or pyramids, and see which one works best.

Parachute Design

Challenge students to design a parachute system that slows down the egg’s descent. This adds an aerodynamics element to the project.

Weight Constraint

Introduce the maximum weight constraint for the entire contraption. This requires students to think about the trade-off between protection and weight.

Altitude Variations

Change the height from which the egg is dropped. Ask students to adjust their designs for different drop heights and explain how they made these adjustments.

Add These STEM Questions for Reflection

These STEM questions for reflection are perfect to use with older kiddos to talk about how the project went and what they might do differently next time around. Use these questions for reflection with your kids after they have completed the STEM challenge to encourage discussion of results and critical thinking .

—> Get the printable STEM questions list here .

• What were some of the challenges you discovered along the way?
• What worked well and what did not work well?
• What part of your model or prototype do you really like? Explain why.
• What part of your model or prototype needs improvement? Explain why.
• What other materials would you like to use if you could do this challenge again?
• What would you do differently next time?
• What parts of your model or prototype are similar to the real world version?

Check Our Our Egg Drop Experiment

The first egg drop challenge had to be the egg in the zip-top bag. We had to ensure the bag wasn’t protecting the egg, right? Crash and splat went that egg drop. Since it’s already in a bag, I might as well squish it around!

We continued with the egg drop challenge, testing each bag and then examining the contents. This egg drop project had some clear winners!

IDEAS THAT FAILED!

Obviously, the egg did not fair well with no protection. It also didn’t make it through an egg drop in water or ice. Note: We tried the water twice! Once with 8 cups and once with 4 cups.

EGG DROP IDEAS THAT WORKED!

However, the egg drop did make it through the crazy cup contraption. We were all impressed. It also made it through a drop in a bag of cereal. The egg, however, did not fare well in the paper towels. He didn’t think the towels were thick enough!

It would be a great egg drop project idea to explore: how to drop an egg without breaking it using paper!

We concluded the egg drop challenge, with a bag of flour mix. {This was very old gluten-free mix we will never use}. The flour was “soft” apparently making for great protection against the fall.

More Egg Science Activities

Prepare the eggs for more simple science projects to explore chemistry, biology, and physics!

• Do Eggs Float?
• Make A Bouncy Egg
• Test the strength of eggshells
• Get an egg into a bottle

More Favorite STEM Challenges

Straw Boats Challenge – Design a boat made from nothing but straws and tape, and see how many items it can hold before it sinks.

How Strong Is An Egg – Test much weight one egg can hold before it breaks.

Strong Spaghetti – Get out the pasta and test our your spaghetti bridge designs. Which one will hold the most weight?

Spaghetti Marshmallow Tower – Build the tallest spaghetti tower that can hold the weight of a jumbo marshmallow.

Strong Paper – Experiment with folding paper in different ways to test its strength, and learn about what shapes make the strongest structures.

Printable STEM Pack for Kids

80+ Doable Engineering Projects in one convenient pack!

• Full instructions with sample images
• Activity-specific instruction sheets
• Data Collection Sheets
• Questions for Reflection
• Architecture Building Cards: Try the tallest tower challenge
• Bridge Building Cards: Explore different types of bridges to build your own.
• Paper Chain STEM Challenge: Who can make the longest chain? Great icebreaker or quick challenge!
• 3 Little Pigs Architectural Pack: Design a house that won’t blow away!
• Great marshmallow challenge: A classic challenge kids love!
• Real-world STEM challenge lesson but don’t know where to start? Our easy-to-follow template shows the steps!
• What’s the difference between a scientist and an engineer?
• Crossword and word search with engineering vocabulary.
• Engineering vocabulary cards
• Design a one-of-a-kind invention and write about it with this 5-page activity!

you worry too much about what people will think do your experiments and be happy who cares if you wasted a couple eggs. it was good clean fun with your kids.

Did any of the bags burst open? I’m interesting in leading this for a library program and need to figure out where we should drop the bags.

There was no catastrophic bag opening. I would suggest making sure the air is out of the bag first. You could also drop it into a plastic bin. Also go with quality zip top bags if you are worried. Have fun with it!

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~ projects to try now ~.

Egg Drop Physics

Introduction: Egg Drop Physics

Step 1: Title, Introduction, Materials, and Methods

Step 2: A Fun Twist

Step 3: Lab Reflection

Attachments

Buggy and Buddy

Meaningful Activities for Learning & Creating

May 4, 2018 By Chelsey

Egg Drop Project with Printable Recording Sheets

Our annual egg drop project is one of the most anticipated STEM and  science activities of the year at school. Check out this year’s egg drop designs  created by fourth grade students to get some inspiration for your own egg drop ideas and be sure to print out the free printable planning and recording sheets .

Don’t forget to check out all the designs from previous years:

• Egg Drop Challenge 2016
• Egg Drop Challenge 2015
• Egg Drop Challenge 2014
• Egg Drop Challenge 2013

This post contains affiliate links.

What is the the Egg Drop Project?

Not sure what this popular STEM and STEAM activity is? In the egg drop project, children are challenged to create a contraption using various materials (usually recyclables) to protect a raw egg from a high fall. This physics activity is very common in college and high school classes, but we’ve adapted it for elementary and even preschool ages!

Egg Drop Project 2018

How we structured the egg drop challenge this year.

1. Students are first given the description of the challenge- to protect a raw egg from a high fall, and it’s their job to design some kind of container or contraption to protect that egg using materials brought in from home. There are many variations to the egg drop challenge. This year we decided to not allow cardboard boxes since they always seem to be the go-to material. We wanted to see what other ideas they could come up with instead.

2. They then form groups of 2-3 students (and are also given the option to work independently if they prefer).

3. In groups the students brainstorm ideas for their egg drop contraption and record their final design on the printable planning sheet .

4. They decide as a group who will bring in which materials and write them down as a reminder when they get home. (We also provide additional supplies in the classroom to supplement their materials like string , tape, scissors, various recyclables etc.)

5. The next day, the kids use their materials to build their contraption together.

We had a cat themed contraption made from a plastic bag parachute, straws, tape, paper cups, paper plate and string…

… and others made from bubble wrap and a garbage bag parachute, a birthday cake themed design using lots of cotton balls, and even an eggplant!

6. Each child is then given a printable prediction sheet . As each group presents their design to the class, the other groups record each contraption on the chart and predict whether it will protect an egg or not.

7. After all groups have presented their egg drop contraptions to the class, each group is then given a raw egg to put inside their designs. (Many students love to decorate their eggs with Sharpies before placing them inside their designs.)

8. Kids head outside with their contraptions, eggs, and recording sheets on clipboards .

9. This year my husband climbed up on the school roof to drop each contraption.

Each contraption was dropped one at a time and then the egg checked to see if it survived the fall. (The eggplant and cotton ball design worked!)

Kids then recorded whether or not each contraption worked onto their recording sheets.

This STEM project really is an absolute hit with the kids! We often have other classes come out to watch because of the excitement. You can even do this project on a smaller scale with preschool or kindergarten students. No child is too young to design and create!

See More Science Activities!

Be sure to check out our  steam kids book and ebook for even more creative stem and steam ideas.

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Successful Egg Drop Ideas

How to Design an Egg Drop Experiment Using Straws

Egg drop projects teach students to use logic and teamwork to protect their eggs from a fall. There are a variety of ways to conduct an egg drop. Begin by explaining the process and handing out eggs to the students. Set the parameters of your egg drop and a deadline when your students must be ready to drop their eggs or go bust.

Container Designs

Many successful egg drop designs use sturdy containers to protect the contents from the initial shock of the drop. These hard containers may be plastic food containers or cardboard boxes. But the hard container alone is not enough to protect the egg completely. The container needs padding inside. Styrofoam, sponges, cotton balls, bubble wrap or even wadded newspaper can all make good padding inside the container. Give your students time to practice with a variety of materials before dropping their eggs.

Straw Designs

Straws have firm walls around an empty space. The firm walls act like the sturdy container, while the empty space provides shock absorption for the egg. Build a shape around the egg with the straws. Hold the straws in place with tape. Add padding between the straws and the egg. Another way to use straws is to design a framework that suspends the egg during the drop. The frame absorbs the shock, preventing the egg from coming in contact with the surface.

Plastic Bag Designs

A hard shell is not the only way to protect an egg during an egg drop. Plastic bags are less of a shell, but they provide a structure to hold padding material around the egg. Add padding such as foam, bubble wrap or packing peanuts between the egg and the side of a small plastic bag. Place the small bag into a medium-sized bag and add more padding around the small bag. Place both bags into a large plastic bag with additional padding around the medium bag.

Alternative Designs

Try limiting your class to specific groups of materials such as ensuring that all padding is edible. Try using cereals such as puffed rice or wheat as padding. Fruit is another option. Use grapes, cherry tomatoes or orange wedges between the egg and the side of the box or container. The fluid-filled cells work in a similar way to the air-filled bladders of bubble wrap. Consider that the egg must drop but is not required to hit the ground. Insert the egg into panty hose or attach an egg-protecting container to a bungee cord to prevent the egg from hitting the ground. Suspend your egg from a helium-filled balloon or build a glider to deliver your egg to the ground.

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• PBS Kids: Egg Drop

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Based in Nashville, Shellie Braeuner has been writing articles since 1986 on topics including child rearing, entertainment, politics and home improvement. Her work has appeared in "The Tennessean" and "Borderlines" as well as a book from Simon & Schuster. Braeuner holds a Master of Education in developmental counseling from Vanderbilt University.

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Egg Drop Experiments

An egg drop experiment is a classic science activity that kids love. There are many ways to set up an egg drop experiment. Read on to see my suggestions plus a list of how others set theirs up.

The overall goal of an egg drop experiment is to drop an egg from a predetermined height and hope it doesn’t break. The egg is placed in or attached to something to help it make it to the ground safely. You could wrap the egg with something, place it inside a container, or attach helicopters, parachutes, or rockets to it. Several middle school and high school Science Olympiad events have involved some sort of egg drop. Many science classes issue an egg drop challenge each year. You can try it with your kids, too!

How to Set Up the Egg Drop Experiment

Involve your child in the design process. Decide what you will be changing in your experiment. Will you be testing different designs or materials? Will you be changing the drop height?

Talk about eggs. What happens when you drop an egg? It breaks.  Can you drop an egg without it breaking?

**Wash your hands after dealing with eggs. Some eggs have Salmonella bacteria on or in them.**

Here are 4 main ways {they could also be combined}:

• Wrap the egg in one or more materials.
• Place the egg in a protective container.
• Attach something to the egg to slow down the decent {parachute, helicopter, balloon, etc.}.
• Place material on the ground to cushion the fall.

Can you think of any other ways?

Our Egg Drop Experiment

We chose to test materials that will cushion the fall of the egg. I talked to Aiden about what materials he thought might work. We settled on bubble wrap, a towel, and a pile of grass. To compare, we also dropped the egg into a plastic container.

We dropped our eggs from 3 different heights: 2 feet, 5 feet, and 10 feet. We recorded our results in a data table.

Aiden was trying to break the eggs. He dropped the egg first onto a pile of grass from 2 feet up. He was upset it didn’t break. The egg also did not break from 5 feet or 10 feet when dropped onto the pile of grass. Our ground was really soft, so I wasn’t sure the egg would break with any soft material on top of it. I had Aiden drop the egg into a plastic container {a hard surface} to compare. Then, we placed the other materials on top of the plastic container.

The egg didn’t break when dropped onto the towel from any of the 3 heights.

The egg survived being dropped from 2 feet onto the bubble wrap. When dropped from 5 feet onto the bubble wrap, the egg bounced and then hit the top of the container. This broke the egg. The same thing happened when we dropped the egg from 10 feet – bounced, hit the top, and broke. I think the eggs would have survived had they not hit the container. It was interesting how high the eggs bounced when dropped onto the bubble wrap.

What materials would you use to cushion your egg’s fall?

Egg Drop Experiments from Others

There are many variations on egg drop experiments. Check out these ideas below and try some out for yourself!

Science Sparks learned about gravity and air resistance by dropping eggs in different containers – a parachute, a balloon basket, and nothing.

Planet Smarty Pants  issued an  engineering challenge to protect an egg  when dropped from different heights. Check out all of the designs using materials from the recycling bin and see which one worked best.

Lemon Lime Adventures  proposed an  egg drop project  in which the children were to create something (a contraption) to protect the eggs when dropped. The children journaled about what materials they would use before building their contraptions.

Life Lesson Plans  set out a variety materials for an  egg drop experiment  and let the kids create an egg safety vehicle. They dropped their eggs and watched them break. After discussing design problems and solutions, they tried again. I love how connections were made to real life in relation to car seats, too.

No Time for Flashcards  built parachutes to protect their eggs in this fun  egg toss activity . Check out their materials and discussion on why the egg did or did not break each time it was dropped.

Parent Teach Play conducted their egg drop experiment in the bath tub. They tested 9 different packaging materials and recorded the results.

Buggy and Buddy participated in an egg drop challenge  in which they designed containers to protect the eggs. Then, they dropped the eggs onto grass and onto concrete. (Find out if it makes a difference.) Buggy and Buddy also has a planning printable that you can download to help you plan out your designs in advance.

Have you ever done an egg drop experiment? I’d love to hear about it. Leave a link or share a picture on the  Inspiration Laboratories Facebook  page or tag me on Instagram .

This post was originally published on April 8, 2014.

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Crack the Norm! Six Egg-citing Egg Drop Experiment Ideas

• EI Editor   Posted On Mar 16, 2016 | Learning Through Play

Spring is the perfect time to conduct an egg drop lesson with your students. The open-ended nature of the challenge, to build a contraption that prevents a raw egg from breaking when dropped, encourages the use of experimentation, prediction, and analyses to solve a problem—the true nature of science! And, speaking of nature, it’s warm enough to take your class outside to test their contraptions. Plus, egg drop lessons are a natural way to introduce the engineering design process (Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create, Improve), as well as demonstrate several key scientific principles including Newton’s First Law (Inertia), motion, velocity, acceleration, and gravity. There are countless ways to conduct an egg drop experiment. Some contests reward the contraption that protects the most eggs and some require the creation of a contraption to catch a “naked egg.” The suggestions below are designed with younger kids in mind and focus on the creation of a contraption to protect a single falling egg. No matter what kind of egg drop experiment you host and whichever contraption you build, be sure to conduct this activity outside. Cover the ground around your experimentation zone with trash bags for easy cleanup, and have your kids stand back at drop time! Since younger kids are less familiar with these scientific principles and may not have tried an egg drop before, they’ll need a bit of guidance to ensure a successful experience. You may want to begin by discussing ways to protect eggs, such as commercial egg cartons, parachutes, and trampolines. Ask your students about the merits of the commercial egg carton design—how would they improve upon it? What ideas do they have to protect a falling egg? Next, check out the six egg-citing egg drop ideas below. Ask your students to predict which option they think will best protect a falling egg and have them explain their reasoning. Now it’s go time! You know your class best, so you can decide whether to simply set the materials out and let your students loose, or provide a set of materials and specific instructions for a more guided experience. Either way, egg drop day is sure to be a smashing success!

Option 1 – Rice Cereal Cushion

• 4 Small zipper baggies
• 1 Large zipper baggie
• Box of rice cereal

Instructions:

• 1. Put the egg in a small baggie and surround it with rice cereal
• 2. Fill the remaining small baggies with rice cereal
• 3. Place the egg baggie in the center of the large baggie and surround it with the other cereal-filled baggies, so that the egg baggie is cushioned in the center

Ask Your Students:

If the drop was successful: Do you think the egg would have survived if it had been dropped in its single cereal bag (without the other bags to cushion it)? Why or why not? If the drop was not successful: Do you think the egg would have survived if it had been surrounded by more baggies full of cereal? How many more? Might a different cereal have worked better?

Option 2 – Popcorn Ball

• Hollow rubber bouncing ball (at least 6” in diameter)
• Popped popcorn (or packing peanuts)
• 1. Slice a hole in the rubber ball and place your egg inside
• 2. Fill the ball with popcorn, making sure the egg is in the center
• 3. Tape the ball shut with duct tape

Would this experiment have been successful if the ball was full of water instead of popcorn? Why or why not?

Option 3 – Cup Stack Up

• 8 Styrofoam cups
• Small rock or paperweight
• 1. Place the rock or weight in the bottom of one cup and stack six empty cups on top of the weight
• 2. Place the egg in a cup and add that cup to the stack
• 3. Place the last cup in the stack and run a strip of tape down both sides of your stack to keep the cups in place

If your drop was successful: Would this experiment have worked with fewer cups? How many or few would it take to protect the egg? If your drop was not successful: Would more cups have prevented the egg from breaking? How many more?

Option 4 – Panty Hose Sling

• 1 Pair of nylons (pantyhose)
• 2 Rubber bands
• Cardboard box
• 1. Cut a leg off of the nylons and insert the egg in the middle.
• 2. Wrap a rubber band at either side of the egg to keep it from sliding in the hose
• 3. Place the egg in the center of the box and stretch the hose on either side tightly to the edge of the box, securing with a staple and tape

Would this experiment have been successful if the pantyhose you used were twice as long?

Option 5 – Simple Straw Pyramid

• 6 Straws (the non-bendy kind!)
• 1. Cut each straw exactly in half
• 2. Arrange the straws in a triangular pyramid shape (triangle base and sides), taping each corner together
• 3. Suspend the egg in the center so that the triangular pyramid absorbs the impact

Would this experiment work if you replace the straws with Popsicle sticks? Why or why not?

Option 6 – Advanced Straw Pyramid

• Supplies from Option 5 PLUS:
• 12 More straws (the non-bendy kind)
• 1. Follow the instructions for Option 5.
• 2. Tape two of the new straws together, end to end, to make one long straw. Repeat 5 times, until you have 6 super long straws.
• 3. Tape one super long straw to each edge of the triangular pyramid created in Option 5

Did the addition of the super-long straws around the edge make a difference? Why or why not?

Have you conducted egg drop experiments with your students? Which contraptions have worked well for you? Share your experience with your fellow teachers in the comments below.

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90 Minutes | 3rd – 12th Grades

Egg drop devices simulate parachutes and other similar features seen in nature, such as the helicopter seeds that are dropped from some trees. The process of slowing descent to resist the force of gravity has been used in a number of instances in history, and continues to be an important science – especially currently around emergency aid and transportation of goods to inaccessible areas.

Lesson Plan: Lesson Plan – Egg Drop

Handouts: Egg Drop Handout Reverse Egg Drop Handout Egg Drop Checklist

Presentation: Egg Drop + Brain Injuries Egg Drop Prezi Reverse Egg Drop Prezi

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Awesome Egg Experiments for Kids

March 19, 2023 By Emma Vanstone 12 Comments

Easter is just around the corner, so I’ve put together a collection of egg experiments perfect for this time of year. Eggs are great for experiments as they are inexpensive, easily available and very versatile. We try not to waste food at Science Sparks, but for most of these ideas, you can still eat the actual egg. However, be careful if you have a child with allergies.

Don’t forget to check out my ever-growing selection of printable science experiments too!

Egg Experiments for Kids

Egg drop experiment.

My Humpty Dumpty themed egg drop experiment is great fun. We used sealable sandwich bags filled with different materials to put the egg inside, but another way to do it is to make a parachute or create a container for the egg and drop that.

Unbreakable Egg Experiment

Find out how to make an unbreakable egg . All you need is an egg, and some cling film. We’re sure you’ll be surprised at how strong an egg actually is!

Egg Experiments with Vinegar

Find out How to make an egg shell disappear ! This is like magic! Watch the shell disappear before your eyes. Just be careful not to break the membrane like we did.

Once you’ve dissolved the shell with vinegar, you can make the egg bounce ! Be warned, it might break!

How to shrink an egg

Make an egg shrink and then expand, but first, you’ll have to remove the shell to expose the delicate membrane. This is a brilliant visual way to learn about osmosis !

How strong is an eggshell?

Do you think an eggshell is strong or weak? This activity uses eggshells to make a bridge that books can be piled on top of. The shells might be stronger than you think!

Egg in a Bottle

Find out how to force an egg into a small bottle or jar. Watch as the egg drops into the jar like magic. This clever activity works because of differences in air pressure.

Meringue Experiments

Find out what happens when you whisk egg white and why. This one is a bit messy but lots of fun and very yummy!

Once you’ve perfected your meringue skills, have a go at making a Baked Alaska. This clever dessert allows you to put ice cream in the oven without it melting .

The image below is taken from Snackable Science

Make an Egg Float

Do you know how to make an egg float and We don’t mean by letting it go bad!

Eggs as Teeth

Did you know eggs are great for learning about teeth as the shell is made from a similar material? Try soaking eggs in vinegar, coffee or tea to discover what happens.

Egg Vehicles

Create a vehicle to protect an egg in a collision . You could use LEGO, K’Nex or any other materials you like.

Egg Experiments eBook

My new egg experiments eBook contains five brilliant egg investigations that are easy to follow and also great fun.

More egg experiments

Find out how to tell if an egg is boiled or not by spinning it.

Can you think of any more Egg Experiments for us?

If you’ve got an egg decorating competition coming up, these easy decorated eggs might be helpful, too!

Last Updated on April 30, 2024 by Emma Vanstone

Safety Notice

Science Sparks ( Wild Sparks Enterprises Ltd ) are not liable for the actions of activity of any person who uses the information in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources. Science Sparks assume no liability with regard to injuries or damage to property that may occur as a result of using the information and carrying out the practical activities contained in this resource or in any of the suggested further resources.

These activities are designed to be carried out by children working with a parent, guardian or other appropriate adult. The adult involved is fully responsible for ensuring that the activities are carried out safely.

Reader Interactions

February 16, 2013 at 9:47 pm

The egg is only recognizable from its shape without the shell there. Some brilliant ideas here.

February 24, 2013 at 1:16 pm

We used to fry an egg in class to show the children the change of state from liquid to solid with the addition of heat. Can you believe that most of them had never seen a egg frying so it was a real novelty (they were 11!!).

February 24, 2013 at 2:39 pm

These look like fun egg experiments. We have done a few of them but not all. Thanks for sharing.

February 27, 2013 at 6:17 am

Some of these I’ve been wanting to do for awhile, but some are new to me…great ideas all! Pinning to my Preschool Science board to try with my kiddo soon!

February 28, 2013 at 12:44 pm

Ok, these ideas are just TOO COOL!!! I can’t wait to try these with my own kiddos! Thanks so much for sharing over at Sun Scholars. I am featuring this post at this week’s party… YIPEE!!! AND… it’s been pinned to my Best Of board on Pinterest, and sharing on Facebook later this morning. Love what you are doing here at Science Sparks! xoxoxo

March 05, 2013 at 4:34 am

We just did one of the egg-periments! We did the bioled egg on a bottle and it got sucked right in! Thanks for sharing. we cant wait to do more! -Reshama

March 10, 2013 at 9:40 pm

One of my favorite experiments as a kid was dropping an egg from a high height and trying to not make it break.

April 23, 2013 at 3:56 am

Thanks for sharing!! I was not aware of all the neat things you can do with an egg… I know my students will love these!!

March 02, 2015 at 9:41 pm

How does changing water temperature affect the buoyancy of an egg?

August 29, 2018 at 8:32 am

After learning a little bit about what’s inside that egg

March 21, 2015 at 4:24 pm

A la vez, estos signos tienden a tener avatares emocionales constantes, aunque, en el caso de Escorpio, es el que mejor los sabe esconder.

November 01, 2015 at 11:50 pm

We did cells with jello please do this project now and coment below thank-you

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