Laugh and Learn with Silly Sam

Oil Spill Experiment!

 After reading A Tale of ANTARCTICA by Ulco Glimmerveen and OIL SPILL! By Melvin Bergen,have students reach into a bowl of colored water and vegetable oil to pick up a sea animal toy. Then have students wash up and come back to write about their experience! 

You may hear, "THAT WAS AWESOME!", or "THAT WAS AWFUL!", or "Icky, Disgusting, EiWWWWWW! It is a great group experience to allow students to feel the effects of oil on their skin. Then they imagine how terrible and deadly the slick, gooey, black sludge must be for sea animals and plants that endure or succumb to Oil Spills. 

This opens up a great discussion on Ecology and Conservation and what they can do to help prevent Oil Spills. Melvin Bergen suggests writing letters to congressmen and women to let them know that we want to see laws passed to make oil transportation safer. This is a wonderful Language Arts extension and a great introduction or review of Letter Writing. Students can also Reduce, Reuse & Recycle to help decrease the demands on fuel. 

Just AWARENESS of the Earth and its creatures and the effects that can be felt, both positive and negative are a huge eye-opening lesson for our littlest Global Citizens.