Pond Pollution Activity

Today I did a little pollution activity with my kids. I filled a container with water and asked each child to drop in an ocean animal. Yes, ocean animal. And yes, my title says pond. We were pretending this was a pond, but all I had were ocean animals. Just go with it, okay? ;o)

We talked about how clean the water was, and how lucky the animals were to have such clean water. Then I threw in a straw and the plastic rings from soda cans.

We discussed how those could cause problems to the animals in the "pond" and the animals that drink from the pond. Then I threw in a crumpled piece of paper that had drawings on it. I told some story about how a child didn't want to keep the art he made at school that day, so he tossed it into the pond. The blue ink from the marker turned the water slightly blue.

Again, we discussed how this might effect the animals. Then I poured in a little bit of old coffee, saying maybe someone was done drinking it and just decided to toss what was left into the pond.

This really grossed out the kids. Which, of course, was my plan all along! The kids took turns mentioning all the bad things that can happen to the animals from all this pollution in the water. And then I asked if any of them wanted a drink from our pond.

Everyone said no. So I said, "If you wouldn't want to drink from it, why would the animals want to?" I hope the kids learned a little lesson today about keeping our planet clean!

**Linking up to For the Kids Fridays!**