Why is the Statue of Liberty Green? {Science Experiment}

Have you ever wondered why the Statue of Liberty is green? You might be surprised to find out that the Statue of Liberty wasn’t green when it was first built.

As part of our unit study about American Symbols, we are spending time learning about the Statue of Liberty, and as part of that lesson, we are learning about why the Statue of Liberty turned green.

I love having lessons for my kid be as hands-on as possible so the main way we are learning bout why the statue of liberty is green is by doing a science experiment. We will also read a few books, watch a movie or two and do a couple of worksheets about the statue of liberty but I’ll save that for another post.

In this post, I’m going to be sharing about the science experiment we did for this unit. I got the idea for this experiment from buggyandbuddy.com but made a few changes to it so we could track multiple pennies instead of just one.

Why is the Statue of Liberty Green?

The question “Why is the Statue of Liberty Green?” is a great question to start our scientific discussion with. I love asking my kids for their opinions. So that is exactly how I started this lesson. The kids had some great and entertaining answers.

To answer the question “why did the statue of liberty turn green?” this PBS video does a good job explaining it. (The facts in the video went a little bit over my kid’s heads but it’s all good information.)

After watching the video we talked about how the statue of liberty turned green because the statue of liberty is made out of copper. Then I introduced the kids to our science experiment aka the best part of this whole lesson.

Why is the Statue of Liberty Green Penny Experiment

For this experiment, you only need a few basic supplies (which you probably already have on hand) and the printable to track your experiment (get it at the bottom of this post).

Supplies

  • Paper Towel
  • Pennies
  • White Vinager
  • Plate
  • Printable (at the bottom of the post)

Doing this experiment is really simple and fun for kids of all ages. You can easily do this experiment with any pennies you have.

We decided to make it even more fun by seeing which penny turned the greenest. We used 3 different types of pennies the Lincoln Wheat Cent (1909 – 1958), Lincoln Memorial Cent (1959 – 2008), and Lincoln Shield Cent (2010 – present).

The printable has all three of these coins on it if you choose to try different types of pennies for your experiment.

The reason we decided to try the different pennies is that after 1982 pennies only had 2.5% copper. From 1909 to 1982 pennies had 95% copper and 5% tin and zinc. Because of the different amounts of copper in the pennies we wanted to see if it made a difference in our experiment.

Doing the Expriment

Before starting the experiment I had the kids look at the pennies and color the way the pennies look at the start of the experiment on their observation sheet.

Once that was done we started the experiment.

First, fold a paper towel so it fits on the plate you are using. I made sure that my paper towel was doubled.

Place the pennies on the paper towel. Since we did different pennies we placed them with the backs up so we could easily identify the pennies.

Pour white vinegar over the pennies, make sure the paper towel is completely saturated. Make sure to note the date and time you started the experiment on your sheet.

Watch your pennies over the next few hours and days and track any changes you notice.

The printable observation sheet has a place for you to track changes after 4 hours, 1 day, and 2 days.

An optional additional step is to have the kids circle the penny on the first row (start of the experiment) that they think will turn the most green. Then at the end of the experiment have them circle the penny don’t the last row (after 2 days) that was actually the most green.

Note: After a day we added more vinegar to our paper towel since it had dried almost completely.

What Made the Statue of Liberty Green Review

After completing the experiment we talked about what made the statue of liberty green and if the Statue of Liberty turning green was a physical or chemical change.

We also talked about how if the statue of liberty was made out of something other than copper it wouldn’t have turned green. The last question I asked is if they think the statue of liberty looks better green or brown.

That finished up the science experiment portion of our lesson about the statue of liberty.

Printable Observation Sheet

Please keep this printable for personal and class use. Feel free to share this blog post with anyone you feel would enjoy this experiment.

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