“We need to care for the sharks and the fishes in the sea because they live there!”
Our school (PG to K2 levels) was involved in creating a launch banner to kickstart our SSDB project this year.
“We put the fish on top then the shark go swim and chase after the fish to eat them up haha!”
The children were able to actively contribute their ideas in the crafting of the banner by sharing their own prior knowledge about marine life and discussing about the importance of caring for them. They could also brainstorm on things to be included within the banner design and attempted to get involved in the process of making the craftworks.
“Later the sea animals choke on the plastic then they will die.”
Through a simple class activity, the children learnt about how ocean pollution affects sea animals and the importance of protecting the marine environment.
“Eww.. the water is not clean anymore!”
The children filled up a container with blue water (representing the ocean) and placed some sea animal figurines in it. They took a sample of the clean water by filling it inside a ziplock bag and set it aside. They then threw in some plastic materials and vegetable oil in the water. They took a sample of the dirty water by filling it inside another ziplock bag and made comparisons with the clean sample of water that was set aside previously. As they started to understand the effects of ocean pollution on marine life, they even used a pair of tongs to remove the waste from the dirty water.
“The fish will drink the oily water and then they fall sick!”
The children came to a conclusion that waste materials thrown into the ocean and oil spills from cargo ships have the potential of contaminating the marine environment and posing threats to the sea creatures. They became curious to find out how oil can be removed from the sea and what kind of equipment can be used to extract waste from the ocean, which became a topic of discussion to talk about in the future.
