Why is the Ocean Salty? Science Experiment

This week in science, Big Brother is exploring the Ocean!

The question was posed, "Why is the Ocean salty?" He read about how the rivers that flow into the oceans carry minerals like salt with them when they empty into the oceans. We also talked about how some water from the ocean evaporates each day. We believe God created the ocean to be salty.

We did this simple experiment that was suggested by his textbook reading yesterday. I like easy experiments that I can put together quickly! This one gave us an opportunity to discuss some important vocabulary like mineral, dissolve, solution, and evaporate.

Here's what we needed:

salt
water
spoon
tablespoon
liquid measuring cup
small saucepan
stovetop

Here's what we did

1. Big Brother measured 1 cup of water from the tap into the liquid measuring cup.

2. He measured out 4 Tablespoons of salt and dumped them into the water. As he measured out the salt, We talked about how salt is a mineral. He remembered that a mineral is made up of things that were never alive.

3. He took a spoon and stirred to help dissolve the salt into the water to make a solution. Then he carefully poured the saltwater solution into the saucepan.

4. He turned on the stovetop burner to heat the saucepan. We allowed the water to boil for awhile as we continued our science reading for the day. We observed the steam as the water in the pan began to evaporate.

5. We waited for all the water to evaporate, and then checked to see what was left in the pan. We discovered that there was a lot of salt in the pan...over a cup!

So the ocean is getting saltier because salt is always going in without going back out again.

We are both enjoying 3rd grade science!