Pollution Activities

This past week our second and third graders have been learning more about the environment, especially about the human affect on the environment: pollution. Throughout this science chapter we did multiple activities to learn more about pollution and how we can help our environment stay clean.

Our first activity allowed students to raise awareness about pollution. In partners, students created a pollution poster which warned others about the harm that pollution, whether it be air pollution, water pollution, or land pollution, can do to our environment. Students enjoyed creating these posters and thinking of catchy phrases to convince others to think before polluting the environment.

After creating these posters, students presented their creations to the rest of the classroom. Later on that day, students taped these posters around the school hallways so they could play a part in raising awareness about this environmental issue.

Continuing this pollution concept later on in the week, students had the opportunity to perform an experiment with polluted water. In groups, students were given a cup of polluted water and a cup of tap water from the school. Students first observed these two cups of water and discovered that the cup of polluted water was very different from the cup of tap water. 

After this observation, students poured their cup of polluted water into a pop bottle/coffee filter contraption which would, hopefully, clean the polluted water. After pouring this water through the filtration device, students once again observed the cleaner polluted water and the tap water. Students agreed that, even though the polluted water was cleaner after the filtration, it still contained pollution which would not make it safe to drink. 

Feel free to ask your child about these activities and what they learned throughout these exercises!