Every Friday, Mrs. King and Mrs. Wright’s kindergarten classes get to participate in Learning with Lintner! PBC Curriculum Content Specialist for Math and Science, Mr. Tony Lintner, visits their classrooms to do a weekly lesson and science experiment that aligns with their current curriculum.
In recent lessons, the students learned about dental hygiene and making healthy choices overall. This experiment was a two-parter. In the first lesson, students had such a great time making toothpaste and then receiving a toothbrush donated from Where Smiles Grow for this experiment.
After making some toothpaste, they placed five raw eggs, used to represent tooth enamel, in a variety of liquids (water, vinegar, soda, coffee, and sugar water, meant to represent candy) to see how they would fare over the next couple of days. The students then used post-its to guess which eggs were going to be in the best condition and the worst condition by the end of the experiment. Throughout the next couple of days, they continued to observe the eggs and how they were changing.
“The students had a blast with the experience,” said Mr. Lintner. “We discussed the importance of taking care of ourselves and our teeth through hands-on learning. For the students to be able to touch and see how the different eggshells were affected not only engages them but sticks with them.”
During the second lesson, they removed all of their eggs from the liquids to determine how well they had held up. The water egg had no changes, while the other eggs were not as clean as before. The students immediately noticed that the texture and color of each egg had changed. After examining the eggs, they attempted to clean the stained eggs using a toothbrush and toothpaste that lasted the recommended length of time when brushing your teeth, about two Happy Birthday songs.
The soda egg cleaned up nicely, but the texture was off. The coffee egg was a lot harder to clean the dark stain off. This experiment demonstrated to students that even though things are not always good for our teeth, as long as we take care of our teeth and our bodies, it is okay to have these types of things in moderation.
A fun way to explore the world of science and how to take care of our bodies! Here are some photos from the lesson:
