As part of our Science, Room 8 have undertaken a comparative investigation into the effect of acid on our teeth.

We used three hard boiled eggs (as the shell represents the enamel on our teeth) and placed them into three different liquids. We decided that we were going to keep the amount of liquid the same (200ml) and the time they were in the liquid (1 week) the same also.

The liquids we used were water, orange juice and coca cola. As a whole class, we predicted that coca cola would cause the most damage to the egg shell because it was fizzy and had lots of sugar and because mum’s “tell us it’s not good for us”.

What we actually discovered was in fact that it was the orange juice which caused the most damage to the egg shell, practically peeling away the first layer of shell! We were surprised at this because we believed that orange juice was healthier for us because it had fruit in it!

We talked about how we could limit the effect of the acid on our teeth by:

• Rinsing our mouths with water afterwards.
• Using a straw to direct the liquid to the back of our throat not around our mouths.
• Brushing our teeth about an hour later.