Some kids in my family start losing their milk teeth. 🦷

While we don’t do the tooth fairy 🧚 stuff, I wondered whether there’s any cool kid-friendly experiments 🔬 to do with their deciduous teeth? Like dissolving them in easily available liquids to teach them the importance of brushing, or maybe some material strength tests to show how cool enamel is?

Hit me with some cool ideas, I‘ve got a few teeth to experiment with 😃

  • Grammaton Cleric
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    2 years ago

    milk teeth?

    To clarify, I’m American, and always heard them called baby teeth 😅

  • ivanafterall
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    292 years ago

    If you save up enough, you can have them in a bowl with milk, like teeth cereal.

  • @humdrumgentleman@lemmy.world
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    232 years ago

    You know how this goes, right?

    The resulting thirst for scientific knowledge results in unparalleled technological advancement, but also an endless demand deciduous teeth for further experimentation. Eventually their personally-developed, secretly manufactured and deployed microdrone monitoring network alerts them every time any child loses a tooth in the Western world. Slightly larger drones sneak into the home and collect the tooth. In an attempt to avoid further pressing of ethical boundaries, the drones are equipped to carry in small amounts of currency that are left in place of the tooth. Your family, more literally and on a larger scale than any family before, DOES the tooth fairy 🧚 stuff.

  • Rikolan
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    142 years ago

    One of the most infamous experiments is submerging the tooth in cola, to show the importance of brushing. In primary school, it was done on white eggs though, but using a tooth would be more authentic. Ironically, while the tooth should completely rot in cola, the liquid is perfect for washing household things (the sink or a toilet bowl for example).

    • @PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world
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      132 years ago

      That’s always been a pretty misleading interpretation of the experiment.

      The experiment is great. It’s good to teach kids about acids and bases and this basic chemistry.

      It’s just that the same thing happens if you put a dead tooth in any acid, including the ones that are required for you to live, like vitamin c, and the ones that people drink because they think it’s healthy, like vinegar.

    • @BennyInc@feddit.deOP
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      42 years ago

      Does it really? I tried that with some meat when I was a kid, and other than turning a little ugly not much changed.

      • @lightstream@lemmy.ml
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        12 years ago

        Yes it totally does. My teachers got a load of disembodied teeth when I was about 6, and we tied them to string and left them suspended in various drinks. The ones in coca cola had completely disappeared by the end of the experiment.

    • @jws_shadotak@sh.itjust.works
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      22 years ago

      the liquid is perfect for washing household things (the sink or a toilet bowl for example)

      And afterwards it makes a great mixer!

    • @cheese_greater@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Dontchya think its a little disingenuous or at least contrived to be doing that when most people would have rinsed long before that even close to became an issue, if even unknowingly? Did they time its dissolution?

      • Rikolan
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        22 years ago

        Come to think of it, I agree. Regarding the experiment with eggs, I distinctly remember the soda laden egg being submerged in the liquid for 24/7, where as the other egg received water and toothpaste. Perhaps a more accurate and interesting experiment would be to wash the tooth with soda and every morning/ evening wash it with toothpaste? Theoretically this can still show how important brushing is, if toothpaste really helps combat the acids from cola.

  • @zabadoh@lemmy.ml
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    122 years ago

    If they haven’t been brushing their teeth and there’s visible calculus on them, you could use a metal pick and scrape it off like a dentist doing teeth cleaning, to show them how thick it is.

  • @BennyInc@feddit.deOP
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    82 years ago

    Another experiment (with Halloween coming up) might be to string those teeth up as a necklace and observe the reactions of people noticing it…

      • @BennyInc@feddit.deOP
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        52 years ago

        I am OP 😉

        Actually, Halloween is growing more and more here since I was a kid. But I guess that’s more of a commercial and outward display thing than the tooth fairy, so maybe that’s why the latter isn’t catching on?

    • @Fraylor@lemm.ee
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      92 years ago

      Teeth in a tumbler could be anything from a kids story to the next Stephen King novel.

  • @Chronoshift@beehaw.org
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    72 years ago

    You can drop one in a glass of soda and one in a glass of milk to demonstrate what that stuff does to your teeth after 24 hours.