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All rights reserved. Pennies rust overtime. Why do pennies get dark and dingy? i need to know!!! If you took a picture in Step 1, go back and compare each pennys cleanliness before and after being cleaned. Water from the tap is fine. Continue to place each penny in the 5 minutes column in its corresponding cup. Science Experiment: How to Clean Pennies - Teach Beside Me The child should be prepared to discuss why they think some solutions were more effective than others. 3. 'Elephant's Toothpaste, ' link: Can you think of other safe household acids you could test? Hi! In this case, talk with the young scientist about which solutions he or she thinks will best clean the pennies. Washing the pennies in a vinegar and salt solution removes the patina from the pennies, exposing the brighter copper underneath once more. Place each of the pennies in the 1 minute column into their corresponding cup. Have your kids write down their findings on their piece of paper ready to summarize their findings and talk through the explanation. You dont have to stop after doing this once. Here are the scientific method steps and some sample questions to help you work through it. I used this experiment for my science class and my teacher was super impressed. Put 1 tablespoon Tabasco into each Tabasco cup. So what just happened here? Through a penny cleaning science project, you can study atoms, chemical changes and observing processes through the scientific method, all of which are science lesson benchmarks for eighth grade. We use cookies and those of third party providers to deliver the best possible web experience and to compile statistics. Tomatoes contain naturally occurring citric acid, another acid that is generally slightly weaker than vinegar or lemon juice. Here is the science of cleaning pennies with ketchup. You should have observed that each cleaning method made the pennies cleaner, but some methods may have been more successful than others. ', ' link: 2. In time, however, they get darker, brownish and dull. The soda cleans the pennies because it contains phosphoric acid. Science isnt a one and done thing. If you're cleaning metals like copper or brass with lemon juice over the long term, this can react with the metals and can cause corrosion, damaging the metal. The salt and acetic acid in vinegar do the trick. Compare the penny from the ketchup to the control penny. Shine Bright Like a.Penny! | STEM Activity - Science Buddies 20-30 dull pennies 1/4 cup white vinegar (dilute acetic acid) 1 teaspoon salt (NaCl) 1 shallow, clear glass or plastic bowl (not metal) 1-2 clean steel screws or nails water measuring spoons paper towels Shiny Clean Pennies Pour the salt and vinegar into the bowl. While still scrubbing with the toothbrush, rinse the penny with room temperature water. Adding salt to any of the acids (lemon juice, vinegar, etc) makes this acid cleaning more effective by creating free hydrogen atoms in the solution, which increases the acid's strength.