In Your Classroom: Flotsam

by Brian McCombs     Department: In Your Classroom

As I began writing this blog, I thought about the ramifications of all the trash and debris floating in our oceans and the potential dangers it is causing. The numbers are astounding and alarming at the same time. I began to think of the sheer amount of trash floating in the ocean and the space it must cover. Immediately I thought of what a great estimation problem this could generate for students in classrooms. I can see my kids in class trying to determine exactly how much space (area or volume) 46,000 pieces of plastic would take up or determining how much area the oceans cover and thus looking at ratios and proportions of trash to water. From there, could we estimate or research how much was there 1 year ago, 2 years ago, or how about 5 years? Could we then begin to use regressions and scatterplots to determine the amount that would be there in our near and distant futures? The numbers could be staggering. Kids could then go out on their school campus or local park and measure the dimensions to determine what percentage of their school playground, park, lake, etc. is covered in trash. They could proceed to do this on a weekly basis over the course of the semester, or even the school year. With the data collected, it would be a great presentation to make to a city manager, park service director, or even a local rotary club and what is going on in their community.

Many times throughout the school year in my classroom, my students and I collect and analyze data. We can study temperature or weather changes, the distances objects fall or an exciting bungee jump, or even the speed traveling in a "rocket." My student mathematicians need to collect data in order to apply all the wonderful mathematics they are learning about in class. A wonderful website on data collection and classroom projects can be found here. This site has some individual lessons, class projects and lesson/project collections for teachers to access. They all have something to do with the care of our planet, its air, land, and water. Each item has a description of the project and links giving further details.

A data collection website relating to water quality can be found on a site developed by the Vernier company. Frequently in the precalculus/physics course I teach, we use Vernier probes and software to aid in our data collection. Vernier probes (and no, I am not affiliated with them in any way) help us to measure speed, distance, acceleration, temperature, heart rate, etc. in collecting our data for our analysis. On their website, students and teachers can see all the Vernier products, but also several sample labs on water quality they can work on in their classrooms. They have labs designed for pH sampling, Dissolved Oxygen (DO) measurements, and Nitrate levels in water. They have designed these labs to be used with your choice of computers, calculators, or handhelds. In letting the students collect and analyze the data, they become the scientists rather than just students. Thus, they take a sincere ownership in the class and in their own learning.

Extensions into recycling and landfills can also be introduced. Students can investigate the trash thrown away at their homes and schools. They can determine the amount that could be recycled, and if it were, how that would affect the size of our landfills. They could investigate the monetary ramifications if these items were recycled and figure out the amount of plastic, cardboard, glass, etc. that could be created through recycling rather than being made new. How would that affect the money spent by companies? Consumers? Etc.

I also began thinking of how these garbage collection spots are created. The concept behind tides and ocean currents is an amazing thing to study. This could open discussions in classrooms relating to the tidal changes and how trigonometry can be used to study them. Kids can study ocean current patterns and learn to make predictions about where a piece of garbage dropped at point A will end up. I found a few websites teachers can use to introduce some of these ideas. PULSE (Promoting Understanding and Learning for Society and Environmental Health) has a lesson in which students use maps and GPS to determine where the ocean currents would move a message in a bottle. It is described in great detail and pulls in many science and mathematics topics, for example, Cartesian plane and coordinates, and the forces creating these currents.

CIESE(The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education) has a "Gulf Stream Voyage" project which is extremely detailed including description, teacher guide, student activities, student gallery, reference material, and much more. It "is an online multidisciplinary project which utilitzes both real time data and primary source materials to help guide students to discover the science and history of the Gulf Stream. Students will investigate this great ocean current, how it affects the Atlantic Ocean and some of mankind's experiences dealing with it. This voyage includes activities for marine science, earth science, chemistry, physics, biology, math, history, and language arts."

The Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography at Old Dominion University has created a series of lessons -- both science and math -- regarding the tides and the oceans. The titles of some of the lessons include: "Investigating Chemical and Physical Properties of Seawater," "Data Interpretation Lesson Plan," and "Quadratic Regression Lesson Plan." These could be used as extension lessons to study the ocean water and its makeup when discussing the problem of non-degradable plastics.

Finally, another scientist studying the impact of garbage on our oceans is Bryson Robertson, a Queen's University graduate. His website, Treehugger, details his findings, his plans, and has several links to other projects related to this topic. As a class, you can follow his studies, involve yourself in a blog, and follow links to similar sites.

I'm sure there are many other great ideas about how to incorporate the Flotsam segment from "WIRED Science" into a classroom, and/or how to improve on mine. If you have any suggestions about lessons, ideas, videos, or websites, please share them with all of us. I look forward to hearing from you.

Tags: Season 1

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