This year’s 5th graders are starting off the school year exploring how humans are impacting the Earth. Many of the students shared that people are harming the Earth in different ways, such as throwing trash on the road, cutting down trees, and hurting animals. Many others also include that there are people who are helping the Earth by picking up the trash that others throw away, saving the animals, planting trees and more.
So it seems fitting that one of our first experiments this year is looking at water pollution. Students observed a demonstration of how materials that are thrown or emptied into our grass or yards can end up in our streams, rivers and eventually our oceans as runoff. Some such items that aren’t so obvious is car soap, plant fertilizer, pet and farm animal waste, and motor oil. The 5th graders reaction was priceless as I could here the “EWW!!” and “Yuck!!”.
Student conducted an experiment about how some of these pollutants affect the animals in the ocean, which most pollutants end up. Using feathers to represent sea birds and vegetable oil to represent motor oil or crude oil, students observed the differences between feathers in clean water and oiled water. They were then asked to save the “bird” by cleaning the feather with soap and water. No easy task as the oil sticks to the feathers.
This is what scientist and volunteers do when there are oil spill accidents around the world. They try to save the animals by washing it away with soap and water. One student said, “Oh, that was hard (to get the oil off).” My response was, “Can you imagine cleaning a whole bird with many feathers and that is alive and moving around?”
I hope that the students gained an insight of how these and many other pollutants can hard innocent wildlife. I look forward to sharing more experiences with my students in this exploration of how humans affect the Earth.
Check out 5B, Mrs. Ah Heeʻs class as they try to save their feathers.
Here is Mrs. Paiʻs class trying to save their feathers.
