Habitat Destruction Experiment

We wanted to find out how water becomes polluted, the methods that can be used to clean polluted water, the scale of difficulty of cleaning water after it has been polluted and if water can be cleaned completely after it has been polluted.  We started with a couple of gallons of clean, filtered water.  We added twigs, dirt, dead leaves, pebbles, olive oil, dish soap, plastic wrappers, tin foil, broken glass to simulate pollution from various sources.

Then we stirred it all up with a stick to mix it up and make it mucky like currents, waves, boats, wind do to rivers, streams, ponds and the ocean.

 

Then we attempted to clean the water.  We used a slotted spoon and a strainer and was able to get out some of the larger items, but not all of them.  We were able to get some of the suds out from the dish soap, but not all.  We were also not able to get the olive oil out and we noticed how it created a film on the surface of the water that felt heavy and well...oily.  We ended up dumping everything out and filling the tub up with fresh, clean, filtered water.  Guess what? The fresh clean water became polluted from what was left over previously.  We concluded that it is very difficult to clean up pollution and even when it rains and the Earth tries to clean its rivers, streams, oceans and when humans try to clean it up, it still isn't ever going to be as clean as before.

 

Many types of animals, marine life and other species depend upon water as a part of their habitat.  This is why it is important to keep trash and other pollutants out of the water!  We, as humans, also depend on fresh, clean water.  Even though we have sophisticated water filtration systems, our experiment proved how difficult it is to make the water clean and how impossible it is to make it completely clean.

This experiment was inspired by an experiment called "Habitat Happiness"on page 81 of  "The Kids' Wildlife Book" (shown below).  It is a wonderful experiment that gives guidelines and fosters critical thinking skills, as well as hands on learning as a way of teaching important concepts and meaningful outcomes.  It also leaves a lot of room for creativity and open ended exploration.