A new twist to wishbone tradition

By Lisa Justice
Special to the Enterprise

If you’re tired of the same old post-Thanksgiving ritual of breaking apart the turkey’s wishbone to get your wish, Explorit Science Center invites you to put that wishbone to use in a science experiment this year.

A turkey’s wishbone, or furcula bone, is located where a turkey’s neck and chest meet.  It’s similar to a person’s collar bones.

Tradition says that if you and a partner each hold one side of the wishbone, make a wish and pull, the bone will break.  The person holding the larger piece of bone will get their wish.

The bone breaks when you and your partner pull on it because it’s hard and brittle.  Putting pressure on it will make it snap. 

But what if the bone didn’t break?  What if you could make it bend?

A turkey’s bones, like a person’s bones, have to be solid and strong because they have an important job to do.  Bones give structure to your body and hold it up.  Adult wild turkeys weigh about twenty pounds; they need sturdy bones to support them.

Bones get their strength from a chemical compound called calcium carbonate that makes them hard.  But you can change the way a bone feels and behaves by putting it in contact with other chemicals.

This year, instead of snapping it in two, take your wishbone and soak it in a cup of vinegar over night.  Make sure the wishbone has all the meat cleaned off of it first, and the vinegar in the cup completely covers the bone.

When you first put your bone in the cup, watch it for a few minutes.  What do you notice?  What do you think might be happening to the bone?

After your bone soaks in vinegar for a day, take it out and feel it.  Is it as hard and firm as it was yesterday?  Has it changed?

When you first put the bone in the cup, you may have noticed some small bubbles forming in the vinegar.  That’s because the calcium carbonate in the bone and the acetic acid in the vinegar are causing a chemical reaction.  They are releasing little bubbles of carbon dioxide into the air, just like when we exhale.

This chemical reaction takes the carbon out of the calcium carbonate in the bone and after many hours it will make the bone softer and less sturdy.

See if you can bend or twist the bone now.  Is it harder or easier to break?  Can you form it into different shapes?

Once you’re finished twisting and molding your flexible bone, leave it sitting out on the table to dry over night.  What do you think might happen when you let the bone absorb all the carbon from the carbon dioxide in the air around us?

Check in with Explorit’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/explorit.fb to share what you did with your wishbone this year, and don’t miss our holiday public hours:  Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Thanksgiving week, 1:00-5:00pm.

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Explorit’s coming events:

• Explorit’s newest Exhibition, “Forces of Nature” is open November 21, 22, and 23 during Thanksgiving break form 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.  This exhibition welcomes the public back to our 3141 5th Street Nature Center and will feature some of the best of Explorit’s past exhibits including our Challenge Center.

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Explorit Science Center is located at 3141 5th St. and is open to the public the first full weekend of every month.  For more information call (530) 756-0191 or visit http://www.explorit.org, or “like” us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/explorit.fb.