The egg drop challenge is one of my favorite science activities for kids! I love all the critical thinking involved in this science activity, but my favorite part is the excitement kids feel when taking part!
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Have you heard of the Egg Drop Challenge? It’s such a fun way to incorporate critical thinking and problem solving into your home learning or classroom.
Basically, the challenge is to create a container that will protect an egg from cracking or breaking from a high fall. You can make this as simple or complex as you want depending on the amount of time you have and the ages of kids you are working with. I love that this is such a rewarding experience for such a wide range of ages. And the kids always get super excited to do this project so get ready for lots of screams of delight!
(This is the perfect time of year to do it too~ Although the challenge is usually done with raw eggs, you could still do it using some of the Easter eggs you never got around to eating or that you may have decorated with an inedible dye and don’t want to go to waste.)
Materials for the Egg Drop Challenge
You can use anything you want! Listed below are just some examples of materials you could use.
- cardboard tubes
- newspaper
- old boxes
- paper
- tape, glue, rubberbands
- popsicle sticks
- baggies
- straws
- feathers
- cottonballs
Procedure
- Come up with an idea of some type of container you can make to protect an egg from a high fall.
- Build your container and place the egg inside.
- Drop the egg from someplace high. (Be sure it’s safe and an adult is with you.)
- After you drop it look and see if your egg cracked or remained intact. (Remember to wash your hands after touching raw egg!)
Lucy creating her contraption from an old box and tissue paper.
I made mine out of the bottom of an old water bottle and some paper crinkles.
Test #1: Dropping into the grass.
Both eggs made it!
Drop #2: Dropping onto the concrete. Both eggs broke. (To Lucy’s delight!)
Questions to Spark More Curiosity & Critical Thinking
Describe your design. Why do you think it will protect the egg? Did it work? Why or why not? How could you improve your design?
Want to go even further?
Even more activities to inspire creativity and critical thinking for various ages.
- Try dropping the egg from increasing heights. Does it eventually stop working?
- If your initial design did not work, redesign it and try to improve it. Can you get it work the next time?
- Fill a box with a large amount of materials that could be used for this project. Then allow each child to only choose 3 items from the box to build their design.
Egg Drop with Fourth Grade
Later, we took this challenge to Daddy’s 4th grade classroom. The students brought in supplies from home and built their own containers in class. It was so fun to see what they came up with!
brown paper bag, plastic bag, packing peanuts and leaves
plastic container, packing peanuts, plastic bag
cardboard box, packing peanuts, towel, string, stuffed bird (which the student stated was optional~ too cute!)
Design with a plastic bag parachute attached
Container with peanut butter (This survived the 3 foot drop, but didn’t survive the higher drop.)
After the students were finished planning building, they placed their eggs inside their containers, and then we headed outside to test them.
For the first round the eggs were dropped from a height of about 7 feet. All but one egg made it past that drop. The second drop was about 11 feet high and only 2 containers protected their eggs from that fall.
Once the students were done testing their containers, they went back into the classroom to discuss what worked and what didn’t work and shared theories as to why. It was definitely a successful lesson!
Here is a free printable your child or students can use to plan out their designs.
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