Egg and Soda Dental Experiments

Egg and Soda Dental Experiments If you have a hard time getting your child to brush his teeth, it might be time to try the egg and soda experiment to explore the concept of dental health. In theory, a hard-boiled egg’s shell works similarly to the enamel on a child’s tooth. It’s there to protect the soft inside, or dentin, from damage. Unfortunately, some of our eating and drinking habits make it difficult for the enamel to protect our teeth from damage, and the egg and soda experiment demonstrates how our dietary choices can impact our bodies. What You Will Need This simple experiment doesnt need a lot of expensive supplies. In fact, they are affordable and youll likely have most of them already in your home. If not, you can easily find them at your local grocery store. 3 white-shelled hard-boiled eggssodadiet sodawatera toothbrush and toothpaste3 clear plastic cups Before the Egg and Soda Experiment Start by talking to your child about good dental hygiene practices and how important it is to brush their teeth every day, making sure to explain how certain foods, drinks, and activities can stain and damage teeth. You might also want to discuss how drinking a lot of acidic beverages can erode the outside of teeth. Ask your child to come up with a few types of drinks that might hurt their teeth. They might have answers like soda, coffee, or juice because of sugar and acid. You might also want to ask your child to think of drinks that might be better for their teeth. Most likely, theyll come up with something like milk and water. You can also ask your child if they think brushing after drinking some of the drinks that could hurt their teeth could reduce the risk of damage. Explain the Experiment Tell your child you have a way to find out what might happen if he left those drinks on his teeth overnight. Show him a hard-boiled egg and ask him how it reminds him of his teeth (a hard but thin outer shell and a soft inside). Take some time to ask your child what might happen to the egg if you leave it soaking in soda overnight, as compared to water. You might also consider different types of soda and if dark sodas, like colas, might have different effects on teeth than clear sodas, like lemon-lime sodas. Perform the Experiment Boil the eggs, making sure to have a few extra in case some of them crack while you boil them. A cracked shell will change the results of the experiment.Help your child fill each of the plastic cups, one with regular soda, one with diet soda, and one with water.Once the eggs have cooled, have your child put one in each cup and leave it overnight.Ask your child to check the eggs the next day. You may need to pour the liquid out of the cup to see how each egg has been affected. Most likely, the eggs in the cola have been stained by the liquid overnight.Discuss the changes you see in each egg and ask your child what they think happened. Then ask what they think you can do to â€Å"help† the eggs that have been immersed in soda get back to their original state (no stains).Give your child a toothbrush and some toothpaste to see if he can brush the stains off the eggshell. As a variation, you might also want to boil a few extra eggs and add cups with clear soda, orange juice, and coffee for comparison. Conclusions There are two main things you and your child can take away from this experiment. The first is that, as reported in the journal General Dentistry, the citric and phosphoric acid contained in soda has enormous potential to erode tooth enamel. In fact, one study reported that soda is 10 times more erosive than fruit juice in the first few minutes after drinking it. The second takeaway, and easier for your child to see, is that it takes more than just a couple of quick swipes of the toothbrush to get teeth clean. Try helping your child time to see how long it takes to brush the majority of the egg stains.

How to be yourself at work

How to be yourself at work If you’re like most people, you’ve encountered at least one situation at work in which you’ve wondered, â€Å"How should I behave?† â€Å"Can I be myself in this situation or do I need to act a certain way?† These situations can be challenging to navigate and can make an already stressful job experience harder than it is- or needs to be. The truth is, for most people, the subject of workplace behavior can be a tricky balancing act. On one hand, you want to approach your job- whatever level or industry you’re currently in- as a rung on a ladder. At the top sit your ultimate professional and career goals, and you want to align your on-the-job behavior in a way that will best help you climb gracefully and easily. On the other hand, you don’t want to create an artificial or disingenuous work persona that’s so far removed from who you really are that you make yourself miserable.Your main goal is to strike a positive and productive ba lance, using your well-honed workplace instincts and your true sense of self to become an effective and genuine employee that your coworkers appreciate having around. The following are some proven strategies to help you stay on track.Be situation smart.Truly successful employees make it a point to learn the unique â€Å"ins and outs† of their specific work environments. On top of doing their jobs effectively, they study their colleagues and their particular work styles- how they like to collaborate, their preferred communication tools, the tone and topics they typically respond best to.Once you get a good handle on your work environment, you can best understand when and where you can be your true self. Are you a lighthearted employee who prefers face-to-face conversations and a casual tone when discussing work-related issues? If so, be sure to figure out which of your colleagues this style works best with and feel confident that you can be your â€Å"true self† when de aling with them.And what about those more serious coworkers who prefer everything to be handled over email with a minimum of witty banter? It can really be in your best interest to modulate your approach to best suit their needs and preferences- not only will this increase your chances of handling work issues effectively, it should also score you some points with these folks, which is never a bad thing.Pay attention to clues.The most effective employees are truly self-reflective workers- they make it a habit to analyze their behaviors across situations in an effort to discover what works best. This gives them a tremendous advantage when encountering any type of work issue. From what to wear on any given day or event to how aggressive or laid back to be in a meeting and how freely you should share constructive criticism or new ideas, they truly make an effort to analyze a situation and tailor their approach accordingly. There’s a time and a place for most things at work- the t rick is to learn the crucial when, where, and with whom.Learn from mistakes.Let’s be honest- no one is perfect, and we all have done things that we’d love to take back or erase, given the chance. But those who tend to be most successful in their work environments are those who learn from mistakes- both theirs as well as the mistakes of others. It stands to reason that the best measure of what works and what doesn’t is history, and this holds true for the world of work as well. Did you or a colleague deliver a presentation that fell flat? Do you know someone at work who coworkers tend to avoid whenever possible- or perhaps you’re this person?If so, analyze the situation and take an honest look at things in an effort to figure out what’s wrong and where you can get back on the right track moving forward. Strong employees don’t approach this as a moment to declare, â€Å"I just can’t be myself when I’m at work!† or, â€Å" I’m stuck in a hopeless situation!† Instead, they take it as a helpful inflection point, a time to address challenges head on and make improvements in an effort to get further up that career ladder. Oftentimes, the truest way to discover the right approach is by learning which ones are wrong. Trial and error are great guides in life.The Bottom LineIt’s been said that effective employees are like chameleons. They have an uncanny ability to adapt and blend into all sorts of situations. While this may or may not mean that you can completely and totally be â€Å"yourself† in every situation you’ll encounter at work, the truth is that most of us have a wide range of behaviors that comprise who we are- at various times, we’re serious or playful, focused or multitasking, talkative or quiet- the trick to being your â€Å"true self† at work is to know which aspect of your personality is appropriate given the situation. Follow the strategies out lined here and before long you should find yourself climbing higher and higher up that ladder to career success.