People placing red flags on a beach.

Is MDMAP Right for Your Students?

Marine debris is a widespread pollution problem in the ocean and waterways. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Marine Debris Program is the United States Government’s lead for addressing marine debris. The NOAA Marine Debris Program serves as a centralized marine debris resource, coordinating and supporting activities among federal, state, and local agencies, tribes, nongovernmental organizations, academia, and industry.

Understanding where, how much, and what kinds of debris are present in the marine environment is important to help combat the problem. This knowledge, along with an understanding of how the amount of marine debris on shorelines is changing over time, is essential to developing new and effective prevention policies and strategies for education and outreach. The Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project (MDMAP, usually pronounced “M-D-MAP”) is a volunteer monitoring program. MDMAP volunteers survey and record the amount and types of marine debris on shorelines. These monitoring protocols were designed to be widely applicable and inexpensive to implement, and intended to promote standardization of shoreline marine debris monitoring efforts. By participating in the MDMAP, volunteers can generate critical data on marine debris for use by community organizations, policymakers, NOAA, and the general public. Participants will also be joining a dynamic and collaborative community of scientists and the public and will have the opportunity to build supportive relationships with NOAA and other partners. 

Volunteers collecting marine debris along a shoreline lined with palm trees.
Teams of two each survey a 5 meter transect along the length of Parque La Esperanza in Cataño Puerto Rico (Credit: NOAA).

The NOAA Marine Debris Program’s Monitoring Toolbox contains resources for both current and new MDMAP partner organizations and volunteers, including data sheets, tutorial videos, and the MDMAP database. You can learn more about the MDMAP process in Part 1 of our tutorial video series, “Introduction to MDMAP.” All of our tutorial videos are also available in Spanish! If you are interested in watching the MDMAP training videos with your students, we have compiled potential discussion questions for each video. 

MDMAP Goals

  • Detect changes in the amounts and types of marine debris on surveyed sites.
  • Ensure data are standardized and useful for broader communities.
  • Guide and evaluate prevention strategies to inform priorities and inspire action to reduce marine debris. MDMAP surveys can be used to identify target debris items and behaviors that can reduce marine debris, or to measure before and after an intervention, such as a policy change.
  • Provide tools to partners to contribute to the larger picture of marine debris and to meet their own goals of documenting debris on their local shorelines.

Data collected using the methods in this guide can be entered into a secure MDMAP database managed by NOAA, where it is viewable and accessible by other researchers and members of the public worldwide. For examples of past outcomes of MDMAP that range from local projects to larger scale analyses and publications, please check out the How are MDMAP data used? page in the Monitoring Toolbox.

Why conduct MDMAP surveys with your students? 

A student with long, black hair sits on a rock and records data.
Student documenting survey results (Credit: Denise Harrington).

Students can easily recognize the problems posed by marine debris, and they can also independently come up with authentic solutions, including beach cleanups. By incorporating MDMAP within those cleanups or other efforts, educators can introduce students to an accessible and data-rich monitoring effort that makes a measurable difference in an emerging field of science.

Incorporating volunteer monitoring into the classroom helps students develop expertise in the subject, contribute data to authentic science, make meaning of their learning with real-world context, and share their findings with outside audiences to support action on an environmental issue.1 These activities all lead to increased student engagement and youth agency, helping to solidify science concepts and stewardship. 

MDMAP is also a great way to get outside, have fun, and get to know your local shoreline. By engaging with local areas and the unique debris issues found there, students can become the experts, stewards, and decision-makers in place-based action to identify and solve problems. 

Standards Alignment

Participating in MDMAP walks students through the authentic, ever-evolving phenomenon of marine debris and field surveys. This work positions them as scientists and actively engages them in Next Generation Science Standards Science and Engineering Practices, as well as a number of other three-dimensional science learning standards. Additionally, depending on the approach you take and the focus of your learning environment, the activities in this Guide also address a number of cross-curricular standards in math, social studies, language arts, and other subjects. 

You can find in-depth Next Generation Science Standards alignment and additional information on cross-curricular skills development and learning objectives in our supplemental resource: Learning Objectives and Standards Alignment for Making a Marine Debris “MAP”.

Who can collect data for the MDMAP? 

A volunteer squatting next to debris collected on a Virginia beach.
Volunteers are the backbone of the MDMAP effort, and we would not have a successful project without them. Anyone is welcome to join as an MDMAP volunteer. However, because of the rigor of the monitoring protocol and data collection, we would suggest introducing this tool with 6th grade students or older. The materials in this Guide will have suggestions for adapting activities for middle school, high school, and post-secondary students. Educators of younger students are welcome to use or adapt these tools. However, data that deviates from MDMAP’s survey protocol should not be submitted to NOAA. Educators of younger students may also consider some of our alternative units and lesson plans guiding data-based cleanup efforts, including Talking Trash and Taking Action (full cleanup unit, best for grades 5-9), or “Plastic Pollution in Your Life” (single lesson plan, best for grades 3-8). Ultimately, these are simply suggestions - there are no age limits to participate in MDMAP, and you are the expert on your students. 

Where can MDMAP data be collected?

MDMAP is intended for surveys of shoreline areas, including beaches, riverbanks, and lake shores. Unsure if your area has the right environment? As long as there are 100 meters of walkable shoreline made of sand or rocks, the site can be used for MDMAP surveys!

If your community is located in an area with no walkable shorelines, you can still use the MDMAP protocols and other resources available in this Guide, but you should not upload your data to the MDMAP database. However, you can still use the data to answer questions in your community. 

How do we get started? 

If you're ready to dive into MDMAP with your students, this Guide will walk you through the following steps for conducting MDMAP surveys: 

  • Get Ready: Site Selection and Preparation (including practicing survey protocols) 
  • Before Every Survey: Safety Tips and Transect Selection (including cross-curricular descriptions of methods)
  • During the Survey: Survey Protocol (including tips for working with large groups of students)
  • After the Survey: Entering Data and Reflecting on the Experience (including ideas and inspiration for student action projects)
Additional MDMAP Resources
  • MDMAP Tutorial Video Series: These four short training videos introduce participants to MDMAP and how to conduct a survey. The MDMAP training videos are also available in Spanish.
  • Map of Existing MDMAP Sites: The MDMAP database can help you determine whether there is an existing survey site or volunteer monitoring group that can support your efforts.
  • Shoreline Site Characterization Form: This sheet can help you visualize what you will need to record about the survey site you select, but it will only need to be completed if you are establishing a new site.
  • Survey Coversheet: This sheet is used to document the conditions at your site during a survey that could influence debris loads encountered that day.
  • Transect Survey Form: This data sheet provides the directions and debris categories you and your students will be using for your survey.
Key Terms
  • Marine Debris: Anything human-made and solid that is lost or littered in the marine or Great Lakes environment. (You can learn more about the official legislative definition, types of marine debris, and more on the Discover Marine Debris page of our website.)
  • Monitoring: Repeated measurements or observations of a phenomenon over time. (You can learn more about specific marine debris monitoring on the Monitoring page of our website.)
  • Shoreline: An area where a body of water (including a river, lake, or the ocean) meets the land. 
  • Survey: An examination of specific characteristics of an area. A surveyor is a scientist who conducts a survey. 
  • Transect: A narrow section of an area used as a representative sample for observation or measurement. 
  • Protocol: A specific set of procedures and instructions completed to answer research questions. 
 
 

Additional Support for Your Monitoring Effort

MDMAP is a highly collaborative process, and it provides you and your students the opportunity to engage with real scientists at NOAA and in your community from the moment you sign up for an account. We at NOAA are looking forward to supporting you and your students as a part of this growing network of changemakers!   

For any additional support or questions, please reach out to md.monitoring@noaa.gov. 

1 Harris, E., and Ballard, H. (2018). Real science in the palm of your hand. Science and Children, 055(08), 31–37. https://doi.org/10.2505/4/sc18_055_08_31.

For citation purposes, unless otherwise noted, this article was authored by the NOAA Marine Debris Program.

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