Learn about how gills work and how sea animals can breathe underwater!
Channel your inner scientist today!
Materials:
Coffee filter, a spoon, warm water, a clear cup, a rubber band or hair tie, coffee grounds.
Time Estimated:
5 minutes
Directions:
In your cup of warm water, add in about a tablespoon of coffee grounds and mix!
For your second cup, place the coffee filter over the top and secure it with your rubber band or hair tie!
Next, slowly pour your coffee mixture over the top of the coffee filter and observe what happens!
Think Like a Scientist:
Similar to how a coffee filter works, what do fish gills filter from water?
Where do fish get their oxygen from?
How It Works:
In this activity, you studied marine biology! Marine biologists are scientists who study any living creature in the sea.
Speaking of marine life, have you ever wondered how fish are able to breathe underwater? Although it may not seem like it right now, you were able to demonstrate this using the coffee filter! However, before we get into the explanation, it is important to remember that water is a liquid that contains two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.
Just like human beings have lungs to help them breathe, fish have gills to help them breathe! As a fish takes in water through its mouth, the water is pumped over to the gills, which are organs that are made of very thin tissue material. As the water moves through the fish’s gills, the oxygen atoms are captured from the water and placed into the fish’s bloodstream. This occurs so that the oxygen can be transported all throughout the fish’s body.
It helps to think of the bloodstream as a bus. It picks up the oxygen at the gills and drops it off at all of the cells that are located inside the fish!
Now, let’s try to visualize this process by using the coffee filter experiment as an example. Imagine that the coffee grounds represent the oxygen atoms that are found in water. Then, imagine that the coffee filter is a gill!
As you pour the coffee mixture into the filter, you can see that it is able to catch all of the little coffee grounds. In the same way, this represents how seawater (the coffee mixture) is pushed through a fish’s gills (the coffee filter), which capture all of the little oxygen atoms (the coffee grounds)!
Looking for more fun at home STEM activities for your young scientist? Check out our workbook full of exciting science experiments and empowering activities!
