Feathers and Oil Experiment

As part of our inquiry into the environment we conducted an experiment with feathers and oil. When an oil spill occurs in the ocean hundreds of thousands of birds are killed. Oil spills cause the bird’s feathers to loose their buoyancy which makes it much harder for the birds to float in water. Feathers also help the bird maintain a constant body temperature. When the feathers are penetrated with oil, the bird becomes vulnerable to hot and cold temperature fluctuations and extremes. Additionally, when birds which have been coated in oil try to preen themselves, they ingest the oil causing liver and kidney problems. Much of the bird’s food is also coated in oil furthering the ingestion of oil. Because of this and the limited foraging abilities, most birds suffer from dehydration and starvation. We discovered that the most effective way to clean oil covered feathers is to use a mild detergent.