Life Science

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 complete a form that requires them to make decisions about how severely different types of marine debris affect animals, people, vessels, and habitat. As a class, results are totaled and analyzed to determine which types of marine debris are most harmful to the different categories.

Students perform an experiment in which they wrap a rubber band around their fingers and across the back of their hand and try to disentangle themselves. As a class, students discuss their thoughts and reactions and relate to real animals. Older students will write a short story about an entangled animal.

Students listen to descriptions of marine animals and then identify marine debris items that could harm them.

In this unit, students will explore the effects of marine debris on wildlife and coastal communities and the potential hazards it poses to humans.

Reading and accompanying activity about the importance and challenges faced by diamondback terrapins.

Reading and activity exploring the impacts of derelict fishing gear on whales and other marine mammals. 

Rubber band entanglement exercise simulating the impacts of marine debris entanglement on marine animals' comfort and ability to feed.

A timed activity/game demonstrating the difficulty of distinguishing "food" from plastic debris for marine life like seabirds.

Using the NAMEPA Trash Tracker form, students record their waste for two weeks (time may vary). The first week, students record the items they throw away without changing their normal behavior. The second week, students attempt to reduce the waste they throw away and compare their data from each week.

In this lesson, students build a model showing how water flows through a system and evaluate different management practices to see how they might reduce the amount of marine debris that enters the marine environment. The models in this lesson could be used as a classroom demonstration or traditional lab investigation for students, depending on time efficiency of instructor and students.

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.

Students will find creative new uses for common debris items like bottle caps. 

Students will extend their experience in the cleanup by discussing and analyzing ways to prevent marine debris from entering the environment, including Reduce/Reuse/Recycle strategies, Personal habits; Policy change, etc. Using a 4-corners style activity, students will separate debris materials (from the debris deck) into categories for Reduce/Reuse/Recycle/Other.