The Ocean Blog
Teaching Your Students About Marine Debris: a Classroom Activity
Have you ever gone to your favorite coastal or lakeside beach and instead of having a fun day in the sun you were faced with a trove of trash? How heartbreaking it is to see waters and shorelines littered with items that you have at home, that maybe you’ve even recently thrown away.
Encountering ocean trash on the beach has become more common. According to the Ocean Conservancy's Trash Travels report, International Coastal Cleanup volunteers collected 4,253,650 pounds of trash along an estimated 9,151 miles of coastal and inland shorelines in the United States in 2009. That equates to about 465 pounds of trash per mile. This means that your chances of encountering litter in coastal areas is high, and that would certainly put a damper on those long walks on the beach. Trash is showing up in even the remotest of locations, from southern Belize to the open ocean off the coast of Curaçao.
The trash is an eyesore, but there are even bigger impacts. Marine debris damages habitat, entangles wildlife, helps transport invasive species, and harms marine animals that mistakenly ingest the trash thinking it is food. Have you ever heard of a ghost net? This is not something imagined by Hollywood, instead it’s lost or abandoned fishing line and gear that can entangle wildlife like North Atlantic Right Whales and Hawaiian monk seals.
As an educator, I wanted to help school kids learn about marine debris and give them solutions to help. As part of the Museum’s 2nd Saturday Arts and Science Program we hosted “DYOB: Design Your Own Bag.” What better way to start off the new school year than creating your own reusable lunch bag?
To do this activity in your classroom, purchase white insulated lunch bags. Just about any reusable lunch bag will do, but make sure they are a light color and have a fabric covering so that your design will show up. Decorate the bags using washable markers along with rubber stamps of marine animals to allow your students to be creative with their designs. While the students are busy decorating their bags, you can discuss marine debris, how it impacts animals, and some ways to help combat the problem. You can even show this short video about marine debris developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Now that you have your reusable bag, fill it with some great food, but make sure you also use a reusable bottle and containers instead of disposable juice boxes and plastic sandwich bags.
Another great way to help reduce marine debris is by picking it up! Are you interested in participating in a beach cleanup? There’s an app for that: NOAA’s Marine Debris Program and the Southeast Atlantic Marine Debris Initiative have developed Marine Debris Tracker, a new mobile application. Need to find a clean-up for your local beach or waterway? Saturday, September 17, 2011 is the annual International Coastal Cleanup hosted by the Ocean Conservancy. Sign up to clean up a beach or inland waterway near you. Can't find a cleanup near you? You can organize your own!
Does your budding little artist still want to do more? Then check out NOAA Marine Debris Program’s “Keep the Sea Free of Debris” Art Contest. The contest, for students in grades K-8, opens September 16, 2011 and close October 21.
Educators, looking for more that you can do with your students? Learn about five simple things you can do for the ocean--everyday. Teach your students more about ocean trash by downloading this lesson plan from Clean Virginia Waterways, Classifying Aquatic Debris, and take a look at this great overview lesson, Litter and Debris in Our Waterways.
blog_pager_btm
Students need actual figures
Students need actual figures that they can see inorder to learn. Marine debris are useful for classroom instructions.
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 12/05/2011 - 11:27am.I am writing on behalf of The
I am writing on behalf of The Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean. Our organization recently published a report about marine debris and possible interactions with whales. I have included the report below.
Rozalia Project discovers marine debris densities of up to 105,564 pieces and 2.25 miles of monofilament and rope per square mile in the tidelines and current convergences east of the Isles of Shoals
Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean conducted a 4 day neuston net survey of marine debris density and type in the waters around the Isles of Shoals of New Hampshire and Maine. This expedition was funded and supported by the Bonnell Cove Foundation of the Cruising Club of America.
The objective of the survey was to identify if marine debris/derelict fishing gear was found in greater densities in the proximity of tidelines and current convergences and if so, in what densities and make up. This research was conducted by the Rozalia Project as part of a larger ongoing study to come up with marine debris detection and removal methods.
METHODS:
The survey was conducted from Rozalia Project's 60 foot sailing research vessel American Promise, utilizing a 1 x 0.5 meter, 333µ neuston net (provided by Sea Education Association), towed from a spinnaker pole 15 feet off the starboard beam of the vessel at speeds ranging from 1.4 - 2.2 knots. Survey tracks were run in depths of water from 65-330 feet.
The net was washed down when lifted out, to move items stuck on the net down into the cod end jar. The cod end jar was removed and contents sieved through paper towel. Fish, jelly fish and lobster larvae were returned to the sea immediately. The remaining sample was thoroughly inspected by eye for microplastics, fishing line and other marine debris. Once marine debris was removed, remaining organic matter and plankton were returned to the sea. All marine debris items collected were identified, catalogued and those under 2” stored. Larger items of marine debris such as plastic bags were recycled or properly disposed of on land.
Eight trawls, each 1 nautical mile in length were completed (see images below).
• Trawls 1 and 2 were conducted west of White Island, Isles of Shoals
• Trawls 3 and 4 were conducted on Old Scantum ledge, 8 miles SE of Isles of Shoals
• Trawls 5 and 6 were conducted 1-4 miles east of ***tynose Island, Isles of Shoals
• Trawl 7 was conducted 2 miles west of Appledore Island, Isles of Shoals
• Trawl 8 was conducted 1.5 miles east of ***tynose Island, Isles of Shoals
• Trawl 5 was the only trawl that was conducted through a visually identified tideline. Seaweed, foam and floating micro, meso and macro marine debris were all observed on the surface in this trawl area.
• Trawls 3 through 8 were conducted under sail
The ledges to the east of the Isles of Shoals are a convergent/upwelling zone on the outer bend of a slowing Western Maine Coastal Current (see figure left). This is potentially a temporary terminus area for marine debris that has travelled half of the Gulf of Maine Gyre past some of North America's busiest commercial fishing areas of Nova Scotia and Coastal Maine. In addition, it is an area in proximity to and encompassing marine mammal habitat and feeding grounds such as Jeffrey’s Ledge, seasonal home to minke, finback, and humpback whales as well as the endangered Atlantic right whale.
Using daily sea surface temperature satellite pictures, we identified where the cold water of the Western Maine Coastal Current upwelled to converge with warmer inshore waters, this convergence on September the 13th produced a visually defined tideline, as we sailed 1.0 miles east from ***tynose island on the Isle of Shoals. The tideline was in a SW-NE axis. We conducted Trawl 5 at a 90 degree angle to the tideline, and bisected it at the 0.5 nautical mile distance of the 1 nautical mile length trawl.
RESULTS:
1. Trawls 1,2,3,4,6,7,8 yielded an average of 4.714 pieces of marine debris. This equals: 8,731 pieces of marine debris per nautical square mile
2. Trawls 1,2,3,4,6,7,8 yielded derelict fishing gear in the form of monofilament fishing line and rope/net fiber that made up 30.3% of the marine debris collected in these trawls
3. Trawl 5 bisected a visible tideline and yielded 57 pieces of marine debris. This equals: 105,564 pieces of marine debris per nm2
4. Trawl 5 yielded derelict fishing gear in the form of monofliament fishing line and rope/net fiber that made up 66% of the marine debris collected in this trawl
5. Trawl 5 contained 22 pieces of monofilament that averaged 3.2cm/piece totaling 70.4cm
6. Trawl 5 contained 16 pieces of rope/net fiber that averaged 9.6cm/piece totaling 154.1cm
7. Trawl 5 contained 224.5cm total length of monofilament and fiber. This equals 2.245 nm of monofilament and rope/net fiber per nm2
8. Tidelines and current convergences can yield up to:
• 105,564 pieces of marine debris/nm2
• 2.25 nautical miles of monofilament, fishing line and rope and net fiber/nm2
CONCLUSIONS:
1. More research is needed to increase the number of tidelines, convergences that are sampled by neuston net to give a good representative sample
2. There is a higher density of floating marine debris associated with visible tidelines and convergences
3. There is a higher density of floating derelict fishing gear associated with visible tidelines and convergences
4. The Western Maine Coastal Current has a high density of floating derelict fishing gear
FUTURE:
Rozalia Project is planning another expedition in 2012 to conduct neuston net trawls in tidelines and current convergences of the Western Maine coastal current. We will be working with the Blue Ocean Society of Portsmouth, NH, who have representatives on several whale watching boats. Their observers will contact us with the location of visible tidelines between the Isle of Shoals and Jeffrey's Ledge, allowing us to start mapping their location and size, as well as streamline our locating tidelines on a daily basis to run trawls. We also hope to partner with local draggers, lobstermen and tuna fishermen to provide us with additional realtime tidal data.
Jeffrey's Basin and Ledge are critical whale feeding areas, where a variety of marine mammals are frequently observed surface feeding. These areas of upwelling and current convergences with high densities of monofilament and rope/net fiber may also be locations where there are higher densities of plankton and copepods on which the whale feeds, thus increasing the risk of potentially harmful marine debris ingestion by the whales.
The high density of marine debris in these tidelines makes it feasible to remove. Rozalia Project is in the process of designing a trawl net that removes marine debris, but does not harm the plankton and other organisms that are bi-catch in the neuston net trawl. Our intent is that if results are successful, we will scale this marine debris net up to commercial size, so that fishing boats can be employed to trawl tidelines for marine debris when they have exceeded fishing quota or due to grounds closure.
Thanks to this study, Rozalia Project is making the removal of marine debris and derelict fishing gear in the vicinity of the Western Maine Coastal Current a priority; for the protection of the oceans on the whole and the whales and marine mammals who call these waters home.
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 2:41pm.Mark & Hicham, Your stories
Mark & Hicham,
Your stories are wonderful! Engaging your students in a community conservation project is a great way to teach them about environmental stewardship. Keep up the great work!
-The Ocean Portal Team
Submitted by Ocean Portal Team on Tue, 10/11/2011 - 11:15am.My name is Hicham Samar. I
My name is Hicham Samar. I live in the coastal city of Casablanca and I tried to get my students involved in protecting the beaches of the city. We started an initiative to try an clean up the beaches and got a few environmental agencies to help
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 10/10/2011 - 8:11am.We had a project where the
We had a project where the students collected the debris on the beach and then used them to make different art works. The art work by the students really highlighted the problems of rubbish on our coastlines.
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 09/26/2011 - 6:11pm.Mark
Im a student,I think this is
Im a student,I think this is cool
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 09/20/2011 - 8:00pm.