Squeaks and I were reading about a drought in California, where people didn’t have enough fresh water to drink because it didn’t rain much. This made Squeaks wonder why we can’t just drink the ocean water since California is right next to the Pacific Ocean, which has a lot of water!
The main issue is that ocean water is not the same as the water from your faucet or a drinking fountain. Ocean water has a lot of salt in it, much more than the salt we put on our popcorn. Our bodies need the right balance of water and salt to stay healthy. We need lots of water and not too much salt.
Our bodies have parts that help keep this balance, especially our kidneys. The kidneys make urine (or pee) and help remove extra salt from our bodies. If you eat a lot of salt, like from a big bucket of popcorn, you might feel thirsty. That’s your body telling you to drink more water to help get rid of the salt.
But if you drink ocean water, there’s too much salt for your kidneys to handle. You wouldn’t be able to get rid of all the salt, and it would make you even thirstier and unhealthy.
Some places use big machines in water treatment plants to take salt out of ocean water and turn it into fresh water. However, these plants are expensive and take a lot of time and money to run, so there aren’t many of them. Scientists are working on finding cheaper ways to do this, so maybe one day we can use more ocean water for drinking.
Until then, we can help by not wasting the fresh water we have. Simple actions like turning off the tap while brushing your teeth can make a difference. Thanks for learning with us! If you want to keep having fun and learning, subscribe to our channel, and we’ll see you next time!
Salt and Water Experiment: Try this simple experiment to understand why we can’t drink ocean water. Fill two cups with water. In one cup, add a tablespoon of salt and stir until it dissolves. Taste a tiny drop of each water (with adult supervision) to see the difference. Discuss how the salty water tastes and why it might not be good for our bodies.
Kidney Role Play: Pretend to be kidneys! Use a sponge to represent your kidneys and a bowl of water with a little salt mixed in. Dip the sponge in the salty water and squeeze it out into another bowl. Notice how the sponge (your kidneys) can’t remove all the salt. Talk about how this shows why drinking salty ocean water isn’t good for us.
Water Conservation Challenge: Make a list of ways you can save water at home. Try to do at least one thing from your list every day for a week, like turning off the tap while brushing your teeth or taking shorter showers. Keep track of your actions and share your experiences with your family or friends.
