Bending Bones

I have been wanting to try this experiment for quite a while.  And this summer we are completing our health unit for school, so when we began learning about the skeletal system it was time to bend some bones.

First we had to eat a chicken.  I saved the leg and thigh bones and scrubbed them clean.

We learned in our science book that the hard part of bones is calcium....very hard.....we couldn't bend them.



Place the bones into a jar and cover with white vinegar.

We waited 3 days, but the bones did not bend.  We returned them to the vinegar and waited a week.

After the week was up we removed the bones.

They were squishy and weird.

And they could bend.

The vinegar is an acid and it dissolved the calcium on the outside of the bones...making them bendable.

We now know it is very important to drink our milk and get our calcium...we don't want our bones to bend.