Threats to the ocean: oil spills...

This week, we are continuing our studies on threats to the ocean. Today, we focused on oil spills. Students learned about the Deep Horizon oil spill. This oil spill poured more than 5 million barrels of oil into the ocean. That is equivalent to over 210 million gallons. To put that into perspective, our classroom could hold approximately 13,000 gallons of milk if we stacked them from wall to wall, floor to ceiling. That means we would have to completely fill over 16,153 classrooms! That is a LOT of oil! After learning about how devastating oil spills are to ocean life, students learned about containment and the three most common methods of cleaning up the oil: suction, skimming, and absorbing. After students cleaned up their oil spills, we took a picture in the glare of the light to see how much oil was actually remaining. This was a messy, but fun, activity!