Our current science topic is Animals Including Humans, focusing on teeth and the digestive system. We have conducted an experiment to see how sugary drinks affect our teeth. The children chose the drinks we should use, and we had eggs to represent our teeth as the outer shell is similar in construction to the enamel on our teeth.
We left the eggs immersed for days before taking them out to see the results. Milk and water had little effect on the shell, coffee and cola discoloured the shell, but Lucozade Sport and Apple Juice actively destroyed the outer layer of the shell! As you can see the shells left in these drinks do not look very appealing. This had quite an effect on some children with them vowing not to drink certain drinks in future!
We discussed ways in which we could adapt the experiment, and ideas were to ‘clean’ the egg shell with fluoride toothpaste first to see whether this had a protecting effect or even washing the egg in mouthwash before it was emersed. Both great ideas – well done Year 4!
