Hooked on Science: Egg helmet shows how the brain can be protected

Using a few ingredients from around the house, you can learn how to protect your brain from an injury.

Materials

* Two raw eggs

* Tape

* Newspaper

* Styrofoam

Instructions

STEP 1: Place a piece of the newspaper on the ground. Drop the egg on the newspaper. What happened?

STEP 2: Using the newspaper, Styrofoam and tape, create an "egg helmet" for your egg.

STEP 3: Place a piece of newspaper on the ground. Drop the egg on the newspaper. What happened?

Explanation

The eggshell represents your skull and the contents inside the egg represent your brain. During the first attempt, the eggshell cracks open allowing the contents to ooze onto the newspaper. The "egg helmet" you created protected the egg during the second attempt.

Jason Lindsey is a science outreach educator with Hooked on Science. Check out his website www.hookedonscience.org for webcasts and experiments that might get you hooked on science. Send him your science questions at jlindsey@hookedonscience.org. More science experiments can be found at www.semissourian.com.