By Janice VanCleave, especially for A2ZHomeschool.com

Your body is made of different kinds of chemicals, such as calcium.

About 99% of the calcium in your body is in your bones and teeth.

The remaining calcium in your body has very important jobs, such as regulating your heart rhythm, and movement of materials in and out of your cells.

Your bones are hard because they contain calcium.

If the calcium were removed from your bones, your skeleton would be very flexible. Instead of supporting your body so that you can stand and move around, your calcium free bones would be much like having rubber bones.

Discover for Yourself

How to Remove Calcium from a Bone

Time: 7 or more days

Special Instructions: For safety, use a cooked chicken or turkey bone. Raw chicken can contain harmful bacteria, such as Salmonella.

Vinegar can burn eyes and small cuts in your skin.

1. Cut as much of the meat off a chicken or turkey leg bone as you can.

2. Wash the bone in soapy water and rinse.

3. Holding the ends of the leg bone, try to bend the bone.

4. Place the bone in a jar. The jar must be tall enough so that you can add vinegar and cover all of the bone. Note: White vinegar is less expensive, clear, and works well.

5. Secure the lid on the jar. The lid doesn’t affect the experiment and can be left off.

6. After 24 or more hours, remove the lid. Using tongs, remove the bone from the jar.

7. Rinse the vinegar off the bone with water.

8. Test the hardness of the bone by repeating step 3.

9. Replace the bone in the jar of vinegar and secure the lid.

10. Repeat steps 6 through 9 for seven or more days. Make note how the flexibility of the bone increases each day.

Did You Know?

Your thigh bone is the longest bone in your body. This bone is shaped much like a hollow tube. To discover for yourself how the shape of a thigh bone makes it strong, see

Testing the Strength of a Thigh Bone

More about Skeletons

More Science Project Ideas for Kids