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I'm Jacqueline and this is Devin. We're Mrs. Dunn's fourth grade class.

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Hi. We saw on the NASA Sci-Fi Kids Club website that you're working on an experiment to clean up an oil spill.

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What kind of oil did you spill?

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It's not a real oil spill, but a simulated one.

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We used vegetable oil and cocoa powder and mixed it together to make an environmentally friendly oil.

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That's a good idea. Crude oil, such as motor oil, can be damaging to the environment, even on a small scale.

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Exactly. Next, we made our own mini ocean by pouring 5 milliliters of salt into a shallow aluminum pan full of water.

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Then, we slowly poured our oil on top of the water in the pan.

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What happened?

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Because oil is lighter than water, it spreads out and floats on top.

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It looks kind of pretty with rainbow colors, but it isn't so pretty when we try to clean it up.

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What do you use to clean it up?

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We are trying a variety of things, such as absorbents, skimmers, and detergents.

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What are absorbents?

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Absorbents are materials such as straw, sawdust, and peat moss used to absorb the oil off the top of the water.

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So, did the absorbents help clean up the oil?

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Not very well. We still have a lot of oil left, and it's very messy.

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Next, we are trying spoons to simulate skimmers, which are bowl-shaped devices used to skim the oil off the top of the water.

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Does that work better than the absorbents?

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No, and we didn't get much oil either.

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Last, we are trying detergent. That works much better.

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The oil immediately moves and forms gobs, but a lot of detergent wouldn't be good for the environment.

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That would turn into one big bubble bath.

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So, what did you conclude with your experiment?

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We concluded that there is no easy way to clean up an oil spill, but the best thing is to prevent them from ever happening.

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I agree. Thanks for sharing your experiment with us.

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You're welcome.

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Goodbye from Macy's Science Class at Key Largo School in Key Largo, Florida.