Water pollution — What is water pollution? How is water pollution caused? How does pollution affect the ocean?

Today the kindergarten class learned about water pollution. We watched a short video about pollution in the ocean caused by humans throwing plastic trash, chemical and oil from oil rigs and boats.  All the children felt sorry for the sea animals and said they don’t want people to throw trash in the oceans and rivers.

We then conducted a water pollution experiment. We started with a bucket of clean water and the kids added plastic bags, plastic bottles, paper cups, straws, plastic snack packaging, paper plate, dry leaves,  oil  (we used coffee mixed with cooking oil to pretend it’s the black oil from the oil rigs and boats),  chemicals (we used washing powder mixed with blue food coloring and water to pretend it’s chemical from factories).

The children used nets to see how much of the pollution they can remove from the water. They concluded that the plastic trash can be removed but oil and chemical cannot be removed because it is liquid and impossible to remove from the water, so the water remained dirty.

Some of the children said,  “I will stop people from throwing trash and oil into the oceans!”  They also learned that it is better to use cloth bags or paper bags when we go shopping and to avoid taking plastic bags.

Vocabulary used during this activity:   water pollution,  ocean,  river,  dirty,  trash,  plastic,  plastic bags,  plastic bottles,  packaging,  straws,  oil,   chemical