EGGS
Expressions: He’s a good egg. You have egg on your face. He’s an egghead. I have a nest egg. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t egg me on. Last one is a rotten egg..
An egg looks like a stone, lifeless.It is the most complete food that exists. Many animals lay eggs. Most animals layed eggs outside of their bodies until mammals. There are 2 mammals that lay eggs: the platypus and anteater. The ocean is perfect for eggs. Water creatures lay millions of eggs. It is wet so they won’t dry out, the temp. stays much the same and is full of oxygen and minerals plus there is plenty of food when the egg hatches. Many water creatures lay eggs at night.
Some people long ago thought the world hatched from an egg.
The band you see around earthworms is eggs. An octopus lays 150,000 tiny eggs twisted together in strings that hang on the ceiling of caves under the water. The seahorse male keeps the eggs in a pouch till they hatch 250-600 eggs. Frogs spawn eggs in chains or bunches of jelly. Except for vipers, most snakes lay eggs that look like a jelly bean with a rubbery outside instead of a hard shell. Turtle eggs remind me of ping pong balls and are laid in clutches in a hole in ground. Spiders make silken egg sacs. Oysters lay the largest number of eggs = 500 million a year. A chicken will lay eggs for 10 years – 371 in a year. They take 22 days to hatch. One end is more rounded than the other. Pullets are young chickens.
The smallest bird egg is the hummingbird. The largest egg is the ostrich. It also has the toughest shell
The owl, hawk, and eagle keep the same nest. Other birds build new ones. The largest nest is the bald eagle. The sparrow egg has the best speckled camouflage. The fastest egg to hatch is the spotted woodpecker – 10 days. The largest ever eggs were the dinosaur eggs as big as a beach ball. The longest time an egg can last before hatching is 15 years = brine shrimp. The longest incubation period belongs to the albatross. They lay 1 egg in 2 years and it takes 80 days to hatch.
Many animals are egg eaters. Eggs are rich in vitamin D( rare in many foods) and protein. Eggs are hidden ingredients in many foods and we eat them scrambled, boiled, fried, or poached.
Many babies have an eggtooth to crack and crawl out of the egg; birds, turtles, snakes, and crocodiles. It falls off after it hatches.
The shape of eggs may be oval or round (owls, kingfishers, and penguins) or pointed on both ends as pelican and the comorant. Most eggs are white, some speckled, or brown, or bluish, green, or black. If you push an egg it won’t roll straight. The shell has pores for the exchange of gases and moisture and allows the embryo to breath. The germ spot is in the yolk which is in a sac and is the food for the embryo. The animals diet determines the yolk color. Occasionally there is a double yolk. The egg white is clear albumin and for cushioning the yolk. The 2 white twisted cords are the chalaza that holds the yolk in the middle. The shell has a membrane with air space inside on the blunt end. In a boiled egg the flattened spot is the air cell. The largest chicken egg weighed 1 lb and had 2 yolks.
Fish and amphibian eggs have hard socker ball shells and the baby uses chemicals to get out. If an egg is left long enough, it will dry up completely.
Chickens with white feathers lay white eggs. Chickens with red feathers lay brown eggs. The shell is calcium carbonate, the mineral in bones and teeth. A wasp lays it’s eggs in a plant forming a gall. The python incubates eggs by wrapping around them.The paradise fish lays eggs beneath sticky bubbles shaped like a bowl that float. Each egg contains a large drop of oil. If any float away the father catches in his mouth and spits them back into nest.
Many birds work together to build nest and incubate eggs and feed babies. The hornbill seals herself inside a tree hole and the male feeds her through a slit. For the rhea of S. America – 5-6 females build the nest and guard 50 eggs.
Many dinosaurs were egg eaters. Scientist discovered fossilized nest of proceratops eggs. The Chinese discovered a 1,000 yr. old egg covered in clay. A raw goose eggwhite turns black and yolk bright blue and green
What is sweet and made of egg whites and sugar and we toast them? marshmallows
exp. Find the hard boiled egg by spinning ( The boiled egg quickly stops, the raw one keeps on spinning because of the liquid inside. An old egg will float in fresh water. A fresh egg will sink to the bottom. Eggs float in salt water. Beat some egg whites for kids to see and feel. Put an egg in hot water to see the bubbles of air rise. Make egg tempera paint. Batik eggs or blow out some eggs and make eggheads. Soak an egg in vinegar to remove the shell and leave the rubbery membrane. Put a dozen plastic eggs in a see through egg carton and let children see if they can pick them up with a scissor spoon and transfer to a plastic plate (used for a dozen deviled eggs).Use clear eggs and put animals inside that hatch from them. Let them each crack an egg after you show them how and then seperate the yolks from the whites. They can line up to do this. You will have 2 bowls. Show them what happens when the whites are whipped and make egg tempera paint with the yolks. Small pieces of matboard are great for this.
Crystal Egg Geodes
To make a fluorescent variation for Halloween, substitute the water and egg dye solution with Glow Water.
Blown-out eggshell
Alum powder
White glue
Small paintbrush
Plastic or glass container
Egg dye
Hot water
Craft stick or spoon
Latex gloves
Drying rack or newspaper
Blow out a large white chicken egg and splitting it in half, lengthwise. The egg can be cracked by striking it against a surface or cut with a small pair of scissors. Clean and dry the inside of the eggshell is.
With a small paintbrush, apply white glue to the inside and cracked edges of each half of the eggshell and sprinkle with alum powder until completely coated. Set eggshell halves aside to dry overnight.
The next day, prepare your growing solution in a glass or plastic container by using a craft stick or spoon to mix 2 cups of very hot water (almost boiling) with an entire packet of powdered egg dye. Be sure to wear latex gloves to protect your hands from the dye. (Liquid food coloring can also be used to dye the geode — 30 to 40 drops will adequately saturate the solution.)
Add 3/4 cup of alum powder to the hot dye bath and stir until dissolved. If there are remaining crystals in the bottom of the container, place the solution in the microwave for a few minutes to dissolve them. This will prevent alum from being drawn away from the geode.
When alum is completely dissolved, let the solution cool slightly (for about 30 minutes) and then submerge one of the dried, alum-coated eggshells in the growing solution, allowing it to rest on the bottom of the container with the inside of the shell facing up.
Set the container aside in a safe place overnight to allow the crystals to grow undisturbed. The longer the eggshell is in the solution, the larger the crystals in the geode will be. Twelve to 15 hours will usually result in a perfect geode.
The next day, remove the geode from the growing solution carefully (wet crystals are quite fragile), being sure to wear latex gloves to prevent the dye from staining your hands. (If you are not satisfied with the size of your geode crystals, return the geode to the growing solution and wait a day or two. As water evaporates from the solution, more alum will be deposited in your geode, increasing the size of the crystals.)
Place your geode on a drying rack or newspaper and allow to dry completely before handling.
To grow a second geode in the other half of the eggshell, re-dissolve the crystals left at the bottom of the growing solution in the microwave and follow the instructions above.
Geodes can be grown without using egg dye. The resulting crystals are clear to milky white, like quartz.
While large chicken eggshells are suggested in this process, larger eggshells can be used. Simply increase the size of the plastic or glass container and double or triple the amounts of dye (1 packet), alum (3/4 part), and water (2 parts) used to create the growing solution.
Naked Egg
Vinegar (at least 16 ounces)
Glasses or cups
Raw eggs
Place the egg in a cup and fill the cup with vinegar so egg is completely covered.
In a short while, you will see bubbles appearing on the outside of the egg. These are bubbles of carbon dioxide gas from the reaction.
It can take 12-48 hours before a good portion of the shell is removed. A white frothy scummy layer will appear on the surface of the vinegar. Pour the liquid into another cup and catch the egg in your hand.
After two days of soaking you should have a pretty cool Naked Egg. The egg is a bit bigger than when you first started because some of the vinegar has moved through the membranes to the inside of the egg. The membranes are semi-permeable and allow water to move through them. This is called osmosis.
Fun things to do with your naked eggs
The naked egg is kind of rubbery. How far above the table can you drop your egg and have it survive by bouncing?
To see your egg get really big, simply put it in a cup filled with colored water. This is a good way to see water in the cup moving through the egg membrane. The makeup of the inside of the egg is around 90% water. If you put the egg in a cup of (100%) water, the water will begin to move into the egg through the membrane to equalize the amount of water inside and outside. This process of water moving through a membrane is called osmosis. Osmosis equalizes – or makes the concentration of water on both sides of the egg membrane the same. This means the egg will swell as the water moves inside.
Shrink your egg. If a naked egg is soaked in corn syrup for a few days, much of the water inside the egg moves out through the membrane. Corn syrup has very little water content. If you leave your egg in the syrup long enough it will begin to look something like a huge raisin – with of course a yoke inside. You can reverse the process by just dunking the egg back in a cup of water.