Earth Day
Earth Day Science lesson
In celebration of earth day, K2E took part in a practical class demonstration. We started looking at a diagram of a scene containing a factory. Discussing the impacts of what the factory in our picture could cause.
Discussing the concept of polluting our water, how it affects the foods we eat and the plants we grow. We asked students to tell us how they could help prevent pollution, discussing topics like recycling and not dumping things into the water around them.
In the next step, we used a visual analogue using oil and water. The oil represented the dirty water. The teacher added a small toy into the water, which represented a fish. The toy got stuck in the layer of oil, sparking the conversation about what would happen to the fish living in the dirty water.
After concluding the conversation about environmental awareness, we used the activity to discuss an interesting topic involving liquid density.
Students were asked why the oil and water didn’t mix. We talked about the weight of the liquids, discussing that water is heavier than oil. We then added a few drops of food colouring and watched the reaction. Initially, the food colouring sank and made little balls surrounded by oil. As the oil floated back to the surface, these balls popped and mixed into the water.
Teachers then asked students what would happen if we made the water lighter than the oil. Students quickly realized that the water would then float to the top.
We then added an effervescent tablet, which added bubbles into the water, causing it to float to the surface. When it reached the top, it would pop and sink back down. While remaining little balls as the water and oil wouldn’t mix.
Students were then given their own sets of oil, water, effervescent tablets and food colouring to play with. Taking note of how their experiments bubbled and changed with different sized pieces of tablets or water levels.
Linking this fun visual experiment to our earth day discussion was very well received by the class!
