How to Help

Turning the Tide on Trash is a learning guide on marine debris. This set of lesson plans and background information introduces educators, students and researchers to the topic of marine debris. The interdisciplinary education guide is designed to provide maximum flexibility in the classroom: it can be used as a stand-alone teaching tool or to supplement work in other subject areas.

Students will learn about the efforts of private organizations and individuals, both locally and nationally, to prevent marine debris and take steps to become involved in a stewardship activity.

The students will research, write, and create materials to educate the community about marine debris – its sources, impacts, and solutions. Students will share their research by creating a web site, newspaper, podcast, or television show (depending on the resources available at your school).

As a class, students organize and conduct a cleanup of a local beach, lake, or stream. Students keep track of the types and amounts of trash picked up and analyze this information in the classroom. As a class, students discuss the marine debris problem in their community and consider ways to prevent it.

In this unit, students will learn steps they can take to prevent marine debris, investigate what individuals and organizations are doing about the problem, and explore ways to educate others about possible solutions.

Students will observe and record litter they see in their neighborhood, reflect on how the litter came to be there, then make predictions on how the littered items might make their way to the ocean. Students will compare the litter they have observed with data collected during the International Coastal Cleanup.

Over the span of a week, students keep a log of the types and amounts of trash they generate, and how they dispose of that trash. Students also learn which items were (or could/should have been) recycled, and which items could become marine debris.

Students learn about different trash items and define “marine debris” through a discussion about these items. Students then categorize debris and use statistics and graphing to describe the types and amounts of marine debris that are found each year.

The students will create their own laws and legal consequences concerning marine debris and identify the litter laws and legal consequences of litter in their own state.

Students will review and analyze a data set from a local marine debris cleanup. After drawing conclusions about the data, they will use it as evidence for a campaign to prevent marine debris.

Simple upcycling activity making a fish mobile out of aluminum cans.

Simple maze activity featuring a fish and a recycling bin.

Brief reading passage focused on ways to prevent marine debris (reduce/reuse/recycle).

After gaining a better understanding of types and volumes of waste discarded in the U.S. and how much of that is recovered, students get into groups and create a Public Service Announcement (PSA) designed to educate the public about single-use plastics and mitigating marine debris. The PSA can be a skit, video or poster.

In this lesson, students make observations about what is in their classroom trash receptacle (or various trash items brought by instructor). Students then go outside to collect trash from the surrounding area and record what they find using the NAMEPA Trash Data form.