Mrs. Redus' Third Grade Class, Liberty Township School, Great Meadows, NJ

My third grade class did a simple water pollution project. We wanted to test some of the liquids that commonly go into our waste water at home and claim to be "biodegradable." We were curious to see what effect they would have, if any, on aquatic plants. We also wanted to see how water pollution can directly harm living things.

Materials:

• 6 glass beakers which can hold over 300 ml, marked with ml lines
• water
• 6 aquatic (aquarium) plants
• 100 ml cooking oil
• 100 ml rubbing alcohol
• 100 ml Joy dishwashing detergent
• 100 ml Glass Plus
• 100 ml vinegar
• paper for recording observations

Here's what we did:

We got six glass beakers and filled each of them with 200 ml of water. We added one aquatic aquarium plant to each beaker. Into one beaker we poured 100 ml of vinegar. Into another, 100 ml of Joy dishwashing detergent. In the next we poured 100 ml of rubbing alcohol. Next, we poured 100 ml of cooking oil into the fourth beaker. The fifth beaker got 100 ml of "Glass Plus," a window cleaning agent. The last beaker was given 100 additional ml of water.

We set the beakers aside and checked on the health of the plant in one week, and again in two weeks. We recorded our observations with drawings and notes. The two cleaning agents that said they were biodegradable were Joy and Glass Plus. Neither of them harmed the plant.

Conclusions:

The children then drew conclusions about how some things which get into our water supply can be harmful to living things. Other things which are biodegradable will not harm the water supply. This simple project gave them a good hands on, vivid view of the direct effects of water pollution. They decided to give some thought to what they use and pour down the drain from now on.