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Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Have you ever wondered about the effects of ocean pollution and other waterways? Look at my page  Ocean Unit Study and Ocean Lapbook.

It’s important that we bring it to our children’s attention now so they can make responsible choices and be part of the clean up solution!

The best way to do this of course is through a fun hands-on activity that lets them see first hand how easily water is polluted, how difficult it is to clean it up and to make it like it was before.

Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids

This project can be done with things around the house; you may just need to grab a couple items from Dollar Tree or somewhere else.

Beware of Ocean Pollution

First, gather all your materials before you bring in the kids. Kids lose interest quickly if they spend a long time waiting at the table for you to find everything.

Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids. It’s important that we bring it to our children's attention now so they can make responsible choices and be part of the clean up solution! The best way to do this of course is through a fun hands-on activity that lets them see first hand how easily water is polluted. You’ll love this easy hands-on science! CLICK HERE to go there! #oceanpollution #handsonscienceforkids #homeschoolscience #oceanpollutionactivity

Better yet if you have an older kid who knows everything right now (wink) get him or her to do the gathering of supplies.

Next, here is the list of supplies for the hands-on ocean pollution science activity.

  • A large shallow container
  • Blue food coloring (optional)
  • sea shells
  • clean sand (optional)
  • water
  • plastic sea creatures
  • feathers
Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids. It’s important that we bring it to our children's attention now so they can make responsible choices and be part of the clean up solution! The best way to do this of course is through a fun hands-on activity that lets them see first hand how easily water is polluted. You’ll love this easy hands-on science! CLICK HERE to go there! #oceanpollution #handsonscienceforkids #homeschoolscience #oceanpollutionactivity

Teaching Kids About Ocean Pollution

Then, here is the list for the pollution items and the list for cleaning items.

  • cooking oil
  • food crumbs
  • pieces of plastic bag
  • dish soap
  • toothbrush
  • sponge
  • cotton balls
  • paper towels
  • coffee filters
  • cotton swabs
  • tongs
  • small nets
  • coffee grounds
  • straws
  • soil

Water Pollution Exploration

Start by adding items to your container that belong, explaining to your child that these are the items that naturally occur in an ocean and are part of its ecosystem.

Fill your container with several inches of water.

Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids. It’s important that we bring it to our children's attention now so they can make responsible choices and be part of the clean up solution! The best way to do this of course is through a fun hands-on activity that lets them see first hand how easily water is polluted. You’ll love this easy hands-on science! CLICK HERE to go there! #oceanpollution #handsonscienceforkids #homeschoolscience #oceanpollutionactivity

If you like add a few drops of blue food coloring to your water and mix in.

Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids. It’s important that we bring it to our children's attention now so they can make responsible choices and be part of the clean up solution! The best way to do this of course is through a fun hands-on activity that lets them see first hand how easily water is polluted. You’ll love this easy hands-on science! CLICK HERE to go there! #oceanpollution #handsonscienceforkids #homeschoolscience #oceanpollutionactivity

Place sea creatures, seashells, and sand if you are using them.

Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids. It’s important that we bring it to our children's attention now so they can make responsible choices and be part of the clean up solution! The best way to do this of course is through a fun hands-on activity that lets them see first hand how easily water is polluted. You’ll love this easy hands-on science! CLICK HERE to go there! #oceanpollution #handsonscienceforkids #homeschoolscience #oceanpollutionactivity

Next, talk about what happens when we visit the beach or travel on the water.

Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids. It’s important that we bring it to our children's attention now so they can make responsible choices and be part of the clean up solution! The best way to do this of course is through a fun hands-on activity that lets them see first hand how easily water is polluted. You’ll love this easy hands-on science! CLICK HERE to go there! #oceanpollution #handsonscienceforkids #homeschoolscience #oceanpollutionactivity

As you talk about oil the spills from ships, trash that is tossed aside instead of being safely placed in trash containers let your child add each of the pollution items you have provided.

Stir it all up together. What has happened?

  • The once nearly clear and pristine water is now discolored.
  • Creatures are covered in oil and dirt.
  • The water no longer looks appealing at all to play in does it?
  • Turtles, dolphins, sharks, and other animals get plastic wrap around them.
  • Sea animals choke on items that don’t belong in the ocean and die or are suffering from the effects.

What can we do to clean up the ocean? 

Ocean Pollution Clean Up Activity

You can pick up bigger items if they are floating on top with a net or tongs, but what about items that sink to the bottom of our deep oceans?

Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids. It’s important that we bring it to our children's attention now so they can make responsible choices and be part of the clean up solution! The best way to do this of course is through a fun hands-on activity that lets them see first hand how easily water is polluted. You’ll love this easy hands-on science! CLICK HERE to go there! #oceanpollution #handsonscienceforkids #homeschoolscience #oceanpollutionactivity

Demonstrate how to use cotton balls to absorb some of the oil on the surface of the water.

Toss in a few feathers to demonstrate what happens to water birds when they pick up oil and other undesirable things from polluted water.

Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids. It’s important that we bring it to our children's attention now so they can make responsible choices and be part of the clean up solution! The best way to do this of course is through a fun hands-on activity that lets them see first hand how easily water is polluted. You’ll love this easy hands-on science! CLICK HERE to go there! #oceanpollution #handsonscienceforkids #homeschoolscience #oceanpollutionactivity

Use Dawn dish soap, a toothbrush, and other items to try and remove the oil and debris from the feathers.

Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids. It’s important that we bring it to our children's attention now so they can make responsible choices and be part of the clean up solution! The best way to do this of course is through a fun hands-on activity that lets them see first hand how easily water is polluted. You’ll love this easy hands-on science! CLICK HERE to go there! #oceanpollution #handsonscienceforkids #homeschoolscience #oceanpollutionactivity

Dawn has a program for cleaning up animals that have been injured due to oil spills. You can read a bit more about it here at Dawn Helping Saving Wildlife for Over 40 Years.

Be Ocean Explorers

Examine clean ocean water, polluted ocean water, and “cleaned” up water.

Grab 3 clear glasses and place water and food coloring in one.

Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids. It’s important that we bring it to our children's attention now so they can make responsible choices and be part of the clean up solution! The best way to do this of course is through a fun hands-on activity that lets them see first hand how easily water is polluted. You’ll love this easy hands-on science! CLICK HERE to go there! #oceanpollution #handsonscienceforkids #homeschoolscience #oceanpollutionactivity

Take some of your polluted water and place in the second.

Finally, after you have cleaned up your water some, put a coffee filter over the third glass and run your cleaned up polluted water over the coffee filter.

Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids. It’s important that we bring it to our children's attention now so they can make responsible choices and be part of the clean up solution! The best way to do this of course is through a fun hands-on activity that lets them see first hand how easily water is polluted. You’ll love this easy hands-on science! CLICK HERE to go there! #oceanpollution #handsonscienceforkids #homeschoolscience #oceanpollutionactivity

Compare the difference in water color and quality.

Even the water that has been cleaned up is still not left unchanged, it is cloudy, dark, and still contains trace amounts of debris.

This makes a big impact on my kids as it allowed them to understand how big an impact peoples actions can have on our water sources.

Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids. It’s important that we bring it to our children's attention now so they can make responsible choices and be part of the clean up solution! The best way to do this of course is through a fun hands-on activity that lets them see first hand how easily water is polluted. You’ll love this easy hands-on science! CLICK HERE to go there! #oceanpollution #handsonscienceforkids #homeschoolscience #oceanpollutionactivity

Look at some pollution vocabulary and spelling words to use for an ocean or water unit study.

  • Pathogens
  • Waste water
  • Pollution
  • Biodegradable
  • Hazardous
  • Pollutant
  • Habitat
  • Conservation
  • Ecosystem

If you are looking for read aloud or independent reading books for your child that go along with the theme you need not look any further than your bookcase or library and grab something anything that has an ocean theme like Island of the Blue Dolphins, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Treasure Island, or Swiss Family Robinson! 

Continue with your study using some great books to look through or use as living text books.

Earth Science Activity for Kids

This hands-on activity can easily lead into learning about all the fascinating creatures who live in the sea.

Lastly, teaching kids to learn how to care for our earth by not polluting the oceans empowers kids to be part of the solution and no the problem.

You’ll love these other resources to keep expanding how to care for the ocean and enjoy the beauty it provides:

Beware of Ocean Pollution: Fun Science Activity for Kids. It’s important that we bring it to our children's attention now so they can make responsible choices and be part of the clean up solution! The best way to do this of course is through a fun hands-on activity that lets them see first hand how easily water is polluted. You’ll love this easy hands-on science! CLICK HERE to go there! #oceanpollution #handsonscienceforkids #homeschoolscience #oceanpollutionactivity

Hugs and love ya,

How to Dissolve a Seashell – Beach Hands-on Fun Activity

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

This is a fun how to dissolve a seashell activity. Also, look at my Seashore Beach Watching Unit Study and Seashore Lapbook for more ideas.

With summer quickly approaching I thought a fun beach themed activity would be just the thing to keep kids interested and learning even with the end of the year burnout that we often face.

I put together a fun activity – how to dissolve a seashell.

I remember doing it myself years ago; I like it because it’s low cost, easy to assemble, and the kids can do most of it on their own.

How to Dissolve a Seashell - Beach Hands-on Fun Activity. Whether you're doing an Ocean or Beach theme, your kids will love this EZ activity. Click here!

Seashell Acid Base Experiment

It gives them a visual of what might be going on beneath the ocean’s surface and truly can give them a glimpse of what acid can do in general in a safe manner.

This simple lesson covers chemistry as well as including some conservation awareness.

What is a seashell anyway?

Seashells are mostly made up of a substance called calcium carbonate which is easily dissolved when left in vinegar even for a few days.

A seashell is the exoskeleton of mollusks. This could be an oyster or a sea snail for example.

Vinegar is great for a quick wash and disinfection of the seashells you bring home from the beach, but if you leave them in for too long they begin to eat away at your seashells.

Let’s see what happens.

How to Dissolve a Seashell Activity Ingredients

You will need:

  • white vinegar
  • seashells
  • a glass jar

Ocean Acidification Activity

Directions:

You can either use seashells from your collection that you’ve brought home from your own beach visit or you can purchase a bag.

Save the extra for a fun art project or you can place them in a pretty jar for summer decor.

Place a seashell or two in your container of vinegar.

Be sure to cover them completely and watch as bubbles immediately begin to form, this is carbon dioxide.

1 How to Dissolve a Seashell - Beach Hands-on Fun Activity immediate bubbling

It is a product of the reaction between the acetic acid in the vinegar and the calcium carbonate of the seashell creating a gas. Science is cool, right?

Add in a few fun workbooks like this Ocean Habitats activity book by Evan Moor and it’s easy to sneak in learning too.

Check out what’s happening.

In just 12 hours or less you should be able to see the edges of the shell eroding and maybe some holes in the center of the shell in the weaker areas.

2 How to Dissolve a Seashell - Beach Hands-on Fun Activity 12 hour results

Encourage the kids to check the progress of the shells and vinegar every few hours.

This photo is after 24 hours of soaking in vinegar, after about 12-15 hours the acid left in the vinegar will no longer be effective at dissolving the shell so you can dump it out and add fresh vinegar. 

3 How to Dissolve a Seashell - Beach Hands-on Fun Activity 24 hours

We changed ours out three times during the experiment and it took about three days for the to seashells to dissolve completely.

Ocean Unit Study Activity

After 2 ½ days, all we have left is just a few remnants of the seashell. 

It is amazing how quickly this common acid begins to change the seashells, thin shells will go even quicker.

This is a great lesson to talk about the impact that pollutants have on our oceans.

Chemicals which are dumped intentionally or even accidental runoff of chemicals can affect the delicate organisms that live there and eventually larger animals.

Ask your child what they can do to change things in the future or what impact, positive or negative, that they can have on the oceans and other nature.

We also choose a few books to learn about shells more in-depth.

For anywhere from preschool to Upper Elementary the Let’s read and find out science books or one of our favorites for delivering information in a more fun and engaging way than a textbook might.

For example, look at What Lives in a Shell.

Shell guides are a great item to take to the beach with you, you can quickly and easily identify the shells that you find while you’re there and because they’re laminated there reusable we take them to the beach every time we go.

Ocean Seashell Chemistry Activity

You can take this experiment a step further by choosing 2 or 3 other liquids to soak your seashells in.

Try placing tap water in one jar, vinegar in another, soda, lemon juice or even salt water in others. Label each container with the contents so that you know what is in each.

See how long it takes for the seashells to erode, does the water or saltwater do anything to the shell? How quickly did you start seeing changes to your shells? 

Be sure to have your child record their hypotheses, observation, and of course the results in their science journal.

This project would make a great science fair project.

How to Dissolve a Seashell EZ beach themed or ocean themed hands-on fun activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Your child can share it just with the family, as an end-of-the-year project, or if your Co-op has a science fair it would be a wonderfully simple demonstration to share with a group.

You’ll love these other ocean themed activities:

Oceans Lapbook Starter

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Sharing the oceans lapbook starter today for my Oceans Unit Study and Lapbook,

So we were able to get a bit of school done this week and I was also able to create minibook four today, which is How Low Can You Go. 

Tiny was reading to me the other day about how deep the ocean is and we were trying to picture how far a diver could go.  This next easy minibook gives a visual example of the depth of a diver and also of submarines.

With a little bit of supervised research on google, your child should be able to arrange the pictures or clip art in order from the top of the page or sea level to the bottom of the page or the deepest. 

Then glue the pictures on the page.

Too,  we have started to arrange minibooks 1 – 4 on the file folder.  Above is the beginning layout or lapbook starter of where we have decided to place the minibooks so far. 

Too, when we place them, we try to arrange them so that we have as much room as possible for the rest of the minibooks.

I have some notebooking pages coming up too because this a big unit and I think it needs a bit more research by Tiny.

Are you following along or are you breaking right now for summer? If you are, then you can save this unit for when you start back to school.

Other Ocean Unit Study Resources:

HOW TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE OCEAN LAPBOOK

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It’s the only way I have of freely delivering them to you. Just follow the steps below.

Free Ocean Lapbook and Fun Homeschool Unit Study Ideas

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Ocean Currents Minibook

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I have an ocean currents minibook today. However, my Oceans Unit Study and Lapbook is now complete.

It has been tempting to jump ship (hee hee, corny pun) in our ocean unit study and study about all the cool marine life. 

But I felt like we needed to stay focused just a bit more on the actual geography and science behind how the water moves.

So today I have the ocean currents minibook ready.  I wanted Tiny to take time in today’s lesson to think and pause about the wonders below.

It is important to me that Tiny understands that ocean currents are like giant “rivers” of water and they probably could make any mighty river we can physically see as miniature by comparison.  You know this is the part of the unit study where I want to build his awe for creation.

Ocean Currents Minibook

I think this part of studying oceanography has to be one of the fascinating parts to understanding the vastness of the ocean.

Bottom line: We are soaking up our study of the ocean and loving it!  On the next post on our Ocean Lapbook, I will show you the layout of the minibooks.  I normally like to get three or so minibooks made before I show you the layout and oh yes, I have the cover page coming too.

OCEAN HANDS-ON ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS

HOW TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE OCEAN LAPBOOK

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What is the Ocean Minibook

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I keep on pushing through with our home school schedule and created the minibook: What is the Ocean next.  What is the Ocean Hoping to squeeze in the Ocean Unit Study that we prepared together in our 10 Days of Diving Into Unit Studies by Creating a Unit Study Together before I have to completely stop homeschooling and prepare for the move might be too big of a goal, but nothing ever came from not planning.

I have learned through many years of homeschooling that with big changes you need to mete out some grace to yourself too.

Talking about moving, which you may get so tired of me talking about, but look what sold and was gone today.

piano - Copypiano gone

This sale pulled at my heart strings a wee bit because all of my boys learned how to play on this piano.   Focusing on the fun and wonderful opportunity we will have of living overseas though, I think I might be able to get over this quickly.

My plan for now is to not slow down with any school since I know we will have a long stop when we move.

We will go ahead and start our Ocean Unit Study.  I have already started creating printables.  As usual I have tried to create some of this minibook with cursive writing so it is not babyish and because if your kids are like mine they can always use the practice reading all kinds of cursive fonts.

Also, this minibook is easy enough to find the answers to because it is just a matter of locating Oceans and Seas in their Atlas on online, whichever you prefer them to do.  I will eventually be creating a page with links too, but I have already collected several links when we prepared this unit study together and will be sharing them again together as I round them up.

So the title of this minibook comes right off one of the chapters from the book I told you we would use as a simple spine when we did our 10 day unit study series together, which is Discover the Oceans: The World’s Largest Ecosystem.

Download here What is the Ocean free minibook

Hugs and love ya,

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Fun Ocean Unit Study Resources