Earth Science

Students will begin to understand the impact marine debris has on their own comunities and lives. 

This lesson covers different impacts of marine debris on the ecosystems and human communities, including ingestion, entanglement, and our own experiences. Students will complete two activities:

Students will draw connections between land-based debris and its travel to the ocean through exploration and understanding of watersheds. Through these activities, students will:

Students will pick out the hidden images of marine debris amid a graphic of a beach scene.

Trash Tale is a fill-in the blank, "Mad Libs"-style activity telling the story of a piece of trash that ends up in the environment and what happens to it along the way.

Students use a graphic organizer to review existing solutions to microplastic marine debris, and brainstorm feasible, actionable solutions to microplastics. They discuss challenges to implementing solutions.

Students synthesize what they have learned about marine debris and incorporate their knowledge into a presentation or display that helps others both 1) understand the problem and 2) take actions that contribute to solving the problem.

Students learn about community organizations and what actions they are taking to reduce marine debris. Students then can organize a cleanup of the school campus, a local waterway or beach, or join another community cleanup project. This activity is available for Grades 4-5, 6-8, and 9-12, within the "Solutions" unit. 

Students engineer an artistic and sturdy item from single-use plastics that might otherwise end up in landfills or as marine debris, effectively removing these plastics from the waste stream. This activity is available for Grades 4-5, 6-8, and 9-12, within the "Solutions" unit. 

Student "Green Teams" analyze school waste, work with school and community partners to reduce, reuse and recycle materials, and set goals to make a difference locally and globally. This activity is available for Grades 4-5, 6-8, and 9-12, within the "Solutions" unit. 

Students use scientific models as a tool to evaluate the many kinds of risk tsunami marine debris poses. They then explore the risk posed by live organisms that have colonized tsunami marine debris.

Plastic pellets (also called “nurdles”) are small pre-production pieces that are shipped around the world to factories that melt them to produce a variety of products. Pellets are often lost during transit, and because they float can be found throughout the ocean and on beaches everywhere.

Students relate the location of plastics in the water column to the feeding behavior of various marine organisms. They discuss how marine debris can cause problems for different animals inhabiting a variety of ocean depths.

Students learn about at least two possible impacts of microplastics on the marine environment. They calculate the surface area of rectangular prisms of various sizes and create an argument that the greater surface area of small plastic pieces can potentially accumulate more toxins.

Students extract microplastic beads from personal care products, explore ways microplastics get into the ocean, and learn about a researcher who studies microplastics. This activity is available for Grades 6-8, within the "Sources and Transport" unit.