There are 12 baby food jars with lids. Into each jar, we will put a small bit of a different substance: salt, sugar, sand, milk, oil, beans, coffee, wood, soap, candy, chalk, and carrots. We will make stickers to label each jar as to its contents. Then, each jar will get enough water to be half- full.

The jars can be put aside on the shelf for a week. We'll look at them every day, and make notes about the appearance of the stuff in the jars.

When the time is up, we can open the jars, and make a really good check on the materials inside.

Feel the liquids, and write two sentences about how they feel to your fingers.

Smell the liquids, and write two sentences about how they smell. Re-member, "Yuck" is not a real word, and it doesn't count!

WE WILL NOT TASTE ANY OF THIS, BECAUSE IT COULD MAKE US SICK. WASH YOUR HANDS CAREFULLY, USING SOAP.

Now, we can be really gross, and pour the stuff from all the jars into one big jar. Look at it, and smell it. Ugh!

Do you realize what we have done? We have polluted some water! This is exactly how rivers, lakes, streams, and even oceans get contaminated. Would you like to drink water like this?

When communities near the shore used to put garbage onto barges and empty them into the ocean, they were polluting the water. The living plants and creatures in the water don't know about rotting carrots and coffee grounds, and they would eat that stuff. And worse. It would make them sick and they would die. Other creatures in the ocean would eat the dead creatures, and they, too, would become ill. Garbage is poison to whatever life form it contacts.

When we leave garbage on the ground, or drop it into a river, lake, or stream, we make a kind of poison.

Think about it.