Our featured Earth Day activist is Sierra! Last week, Sierra did an oil spill experiment to examine the effects of an oil spill on the ocean. After her experiment, she reflected:

We learnt that if oil goes into the ocean it won’t evaporate or sink it will just expand on top of the water by wind and weather that pushes it around the water spreading it. We tried to use paper towel to soak up the oil but found that barely any oil came out of the water. Then we used soap and squirted a bit in the middle of the bowl of water and it spread out so there was none in the middle but there was a bunch on the sides which in the real ocean could be rocks, more ocean and beaches. We tried putting more soap a second time but it didn’t work for some reason and when we blew on it again, the oil we couldn’t get off the sides spread again. We didn’t have feathers for the animal so we used white pipe cleaners. We dipped them in the water and had them move around like little sea creatures in the ocean. When we took it out of the water it was covered in yellow patches, which was the oil (we used olive oil). We tried to wash the pipe cleaner off with soap and it was hard to get the oil off. But even if in real life an animal was soaped to get the oil off when you release it again there would be no place to put it, because its home is full of oil and you can’t clean it all up. – Sierra
 
Thanks for always taking time to care for the environment, Sierra! We love hearing about your ideas!
Div. 4, you can try out the oil spill activity here!