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Description

To learn what ocean acidification is and how it is affecting animals in the ocean. (Science Experiment)

Resources

2 clear jars
Tap water
white vinegar
shells or chalk (chalk preferably used/broken up)
Paper towel/cloth

Instructions

The ocean is important to all life on earth. Oceans are an important source of food
for many people around the world and they are also home to as many as 2 million
different types of animals (species). We use the ocean for transport and fun
activities like swimming, boating, and surfing.
But the ocean is also important at producing the air we breathe (over 50% of the
world’s oxygen) and for helping to control the weather (by regulating climate).

Instructions in italics are for leaders’ reference only

Start with a chat about what climate change and ocean acidification are. This is important for making the experiment relevant.
Today we’re going to do a cool experiment to learn about ocean acidification. Has anyone heard of this before?
Has anyone heard about climate change/global warming? Does anyone know what it is?
Has anyone heard about carbon dioxide? Sometimes called CO2? It’s what we breath out, but it also comes from cars, factories, airplanes etc.

Basically, humans are creating gases, like carbon dioxide, that are going up into the air, into the atmosphere to act like a giant blanket and it’s making the earth warmer. One effect of that is ocean acidification. That’s where the carbon dioxide is being absorbed by the ocean and making it more acidic.

Has anyone heard of an acid or acidity before? Have you ever licked a lemon or had a sour sweet before?
What kind of face do you pull?? Well lemons and sour sweets are acidic, that’s what makes them sour!

And how about coral reefs. Does anyone know what a coral reef is? Has anyone seen one before? Have you heard of the Great Barrier Reef?
Almost all kids would have seen Finding Nemo so this is a good seg-way if you’re getting blank stares.
Now lots of animals, like Nemo, live on coral reefs and coral reefs occur in many places around the world!

Today’s experiment is going to look at how ocean acidification affects coral reefs and shells.

**If you’re using chalk**
To do this we’re going to use chalk. We can use chalk because it is made of calcium carbonate, which is the same thing that shells, and coral are made of! How cool is that?

Take your 2 jars (label them if you want) and fill them ¾ full, one with tap water and one with white vinegar. The tap water represents the ocean today and the vinegar represents ocean acidification, but like really sped up, because it takes a long time!

Place a shell/some broken chalk in each of jars.

Get the group to have a look at each of the jars and see/smell if they can see any differences.
What do they think will happen?
Leave them to the side until the end of the meeting

**AT THE END OF THE MEETING**

Have the group look at the 2 jars. Do they look the same or different? How?
You can pull the shells/chalk out so that they can touch them (have paper towel/a cloth on hand). How do they feel? Did it turn out like they expected?

You should see the shell/chalk in the vinegar become softer or more dissolved than the one in tap water. You can also put this aside until the following week and see what happens then.

Scientists find that ocean acidification affects the calcium carbonate, an important part of shells, corals and chalk, dissolve. This means that animals with shells will have trouble growing them and maybe have weak shells, and that coral reefs might stop growing.

Tags

• Animal
• experiment
• Ocean
• Ocean acidification
• science experiment
• SDG 14 Life below Water
• SDG14
• Sea
• water

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