Science Experiment: Oil Spills

Our Grade 1's were very interested in learning more about oil spills. We knew that we needed to respect and care for living things, and we had a lot of ideas about why oil spills would be very harmful. Everyone was very interested in reading books and watching video clips about the negative impact of an oil spill. I was so impressed with the connections students made to their independent reading books! To explore oil spills further, we did a very neat experiment on Friday.

First we made a hypothesis. We thought about what we had learned from the videos and readings and decided that the oil would be very difficult to clean up. We also thought it would stick to anything we added to our 'ocean'.

Then we made an 'ocean'. We added water, a boat, and some 'birds'. We thought that pom poms (and their fluffy nature) might be like animals!

We added oil and we made observations.

Take a look at some of the things we learned:

If you'd like to learn more, check out some of the links below!

Layers of Life - Coastal and Marine Ecosystems

Sea Turtle Relocation - National Geographic Video