Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Pollution websties

Pollution!!

If you ever teach pollution, I have two must visit websites.
When you ask your students what effect pollution has on animals, I bet you get the same response I get. "They die."  wow..... shocker!  This 1st website helps kids to see that death is not the only effect.

This 1st one REALLY hooks the kids' interest.  After introducing air, land, and water pollution, I show the kids the following website that contains pictures of deformed frogs.  Allow them time to deduce what is likely causing the abnormalities.  They won't forget this lesson.  Even in April and May, the kids readily recollect these frogs and how their habitat was changed by pollution.  Basically, in 1995, some students in Minnesota began to find deformed frogs in the local wetland areas, and that's when a small research project began.  It grew very large, even getting funding from their state legislature.  The scientist took water samples and frog eggs and began to try to grow the eggs with the water samples.  This led to the conclusion that the water was polluted; however, their state cut the funding in 2001 and the website reports no official pollutant as the cause.

http://www.pca.state.mn.us/index.php/living-green/living-green-citizen/for-kids/deformed-frogs/photographs-of-deformed-frogs.html

The 2nd is all about composting.  Vermi the Worm is an animated earthworm who walks the students through a recycling skit, a performance about what makes a good comport bin, an experiment using compost and a few sorting games for composting, recycling, reducing and reusing.  Interactive and highly engaging!

http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/Vermi/Game/menu.html


Enjoy!
Tab

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