Once bitten......

Our science topic began to have real bite this week!  We investigated the effect that different popular drinks have on the enamel of our teeth.  As no one had volunteered to pull out their own teeth, we used dirty two pence coins and immersed them in different sugary drinks: blackcurrant squash, orange squash, milk, water, lemonade, cola and diet cola and left them for three days to see what would happen.  Most of our budding scientists predicted that the cola would have the most devastating effect, but, after three days, we discovered that the most harmful and devastating effect on the 2p coins was made by the diet lemonade.  The coins which had been soaked in that were the brightest and most shiny showing that the solution had attacked the grime.  What does the same solution do to our teeth?

Then we looked at when and how we should clean our teeth.  Everyone was convinced that they clean their dentures effectively in the morning and again at night.  We all had a sugary drink, then cleaned our teeth with a new toothbrush and toothpaste.  Next we sucked half a disclosing tablet to see just how effective our brushing had been.  The purple colouring reveals any patches of plaque still sitting on our teeth.  Some of us brush our teeth well.  Others need a little more practice!