During our unit on coral reefs and the ocean, we learned that oil spills are a constant problem! We decided to investigate to figure out w...

Story Based STEAM - 'Oil Spill'

 


During our unit on coral reefs and the ocean, we learned that oil spills are a constant problem! We decided to investigate to figure out why they were such a big problem and what we could do to help.


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We read "Oil Spill" by Melvin Berger to find out more about how oil spills happen and how they affect plants and wildlife. "Oil Spill" also explains how experts clean up the ocean and affected animals after oil spills and provides some tips on how you can help.

We like to get our hands involved in our learning, so while I was reading the story, Lil C and Squidgy were creating their own mini oil spills.


I gave each of them a plastic shoebox filled with some toy ocean animals, a few rocks and shells, and some cleaning supplies. We removed the cleaning supplies and filled the bin with an inch or two of water.



Then I gave them a "boat" (I didn't have two small toy boats so we used Hatchimal eggs) and a little bottle of "crude oil" (cooking oil mixed with a bit of cocoa powder). 



They carefully poured the oil mixture into their "boat" and then spilled the oil! They soon discovered that even though it was floating in clumps on the surface, it was not easy to clean up!



To assist in their cleanup efforts, they were each given 5 cotton balls, 3 sponge strips, a spoon, and a toothbrush. Lil C determined that soaking up the oil with the cotton balls and sponges worked better than trying to scoop with the spoon and the toothbrush didn't seem to be helpful at all! In spite of their best efforts, there was still a good amount of oil left in the water and they also discovered that everything IN the water was coated with oil!



The last part of our activity was to clean the animals (and all the other oily things while we were at it) so we could release them back into the wild! This was where the toothbrush came in handy, scrubbing the animals clean with some nice soapy water. 

In the end, we learned how challenging it can be to clean up an oil spill and that the best way to help was to try and limit our crude oil use by cutting power use at home (or investing in clean energy), limiting how much we drive, and avoid single use plastics as some of them are made from oil-based plastics. 

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