Presidents Day Pennies

Today is Presidents day, and to celebrate we did some science with pennies! Pennies have Abraham Lincoln the 16th president. Before 1983 pennies were also made out of copper. Copper is really cool when it oxidizes. Oxidize means rust, and copper turns blue and green. We needed really dirty pennies so first we soaked them in hydrogen peroxide and salt to help oxidize them more. Once we had dirty pennies we put some in vinegar and some in hot sauce. We used those because they are both acids. They are soaking right now, wonder which pennies will be cleaner.

Lets get some guesses! Or hypotheses (science word for guess)
Anna: vinegar
Mina: vinegar
Jack: hot sauce
Auntie Awesome: hot sauce


The results are in! And we discovered that they were both about the same, but they were definitely cleaner. The acid worked at what removing the oxidized copper. We then put a steal nail in the vinegar solution we cleaned the pennies in. We will check in the morning to see what happens.

Mina: The hot sauce and the vinegar stink!
Anna: It wasn't as fun as some other experiments.
Jack: I missed the beginning because I didn't eat dinner when I was supposed to.



Science Fact: The winter 1932 in the US was so cold that Niagara falls froze completely solid.