Plastics: Made to last forever and designed to be thrown away.

What happens to the plastic we throw away?

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an “island” somewhere between California and the Hawaiian islands that is made up of an accumulation of  debris that washed into the oceans from sewers or trash from boats or discarded items from the land thousands of miles away. The resulting gunk kills birds and marine life by trapping them or by being ingested for food.  National Geographic has a good article with visuals showing the Pacific trash vortex and compelling images.  This student-made video called PSA Plastics Kill (2:10) brings this problem home–right to the dinner plate.

KQED is a California-based media service with excellent educational materials. From KQED Eco-Literacy Resources has various lesson plans designed for ESL students in California. For older students, this KQED video entitled Plastic in the Pacific–KQED QUEST (10:07) provides a lot of information related to plastics, the oceans and recent research in creating bio-plastics.

Not only do plastic bottles pollute our oceans, they also contaminate the very water they were made to transport.  The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)’s Report on Bottled Water Contamination  and this article on the toxicity of bottled water provide compelling evidence that plastics are not just a menace, but a poisonous threat to marine life as well as humans.

Captain Charles Moore was the first person to discover the Pacific Garbage Patch in 1997. The documentary about his research, Garbage Island: An Ocean Full of Plastic, can be seen in three parts: Part 1 (20:47), Part 2 (20:54) and Part 3 (25:02)

A much shorter PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) video (3:50) with  Jean-Michel Cousteau entitled Trash on the Spin Cycle includes a very good description of the garbage patch.  Cousteau’s website has a lesson plan for educators called Debris Dilemmas that uses this video. A related lesson plan on Cousteau’s site is called You Are What You Eat: Plastics and Marine Life  .  The lesson plans are well structured and include url’s for a number of other useful references at the end. Check out 5 Gyres The Problem and watch this short video (1:08) of some of the gunk found below the sea surface in the garbage patch. Also, look at NASA’s map of the world’s current to understand where YOUR garbage might end up.

The Smithsonian Institution has has six lesson plans about the Ocean Planet. This one is for The Pollution Solution.

Finally, Larry Ferlazzo’s article Ideas for English Language Learners for Earth Day and the Environment from  the Learning Network (Teaching & Learning with The New York Times)  has some excellent videos, ideas for speaking activities and links to pictures and other activities.

There is good news about the garbage patch: 19-year-old Boyan Slat conceived of a solution to clean up the oceans’ garbage patches. His website Ocean Cleanup explains it and you can listen to Slat describe his innovation in this video .

Ocean Acidification

The video Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification (21:35) is excellent in terms of visuals and description of “the other carbon problem” which is ocean acidification (after global warming). If time is limited, the first seven minutes provide a good introduction. A shorter video entitled Ocean Acidification by the Alliance for Climate Education (3:01) also gives a clear description with animated drawings.  For a more detailed explanation of the chemistry behind ocean acidification, the California Academy of Sciences produced this film called Demystifying Ocean Acidification and Biodiversity Impacts (12:12) which is excellent for English teachers struggling to understand the science behind acidification!

The Office of National Marine Sanctuaries/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has interesting activities designed for classroom or science teachers to teach students about ocean acidification.  Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) also has lesson plans as well as a number of other sites.