Grade 3-5

Students will draw connections between land-based debris and its travel to the ocean through exploration and understanding of watersheds. Through these activities, students will:

Through discussion,vocabulary, and hands-on activities, students will learn about debris composition and what happens to trash once it enters waterways. Students will also explore the formation of mircoplastic through a simple, hands-on activity using a piece of paper.

An introductory lesson using discussion, vocabulary, and critical thinking activities to understand land- and ocean-based sources of marine debris.

Using cards to represent each type of debris identified on the Ocean Concervancy's list of items found during cleanups, students will discuss each debris type and arrange themselves in order of most commonly found. (Debris Deck cards included.)

Students will pick out the hidden images of marine debris amid a graphic of a beach scene.

Trash Tale is a fill-in the blank, "Mad Libs"-style activity telling the story of a piece of trash that ends up in the environment and what happens to it along the way.

Students synthesize what they have learned about marine debris and incorporate their knowledge into a presentation or display that helps others both 1) understand the problem and 2) take actions that contribute to solving the problem.

Students learn about community organizations and what actions they are taking to reduce marine debris. Students then can organize a cleanup of the school campus, a local waterway or beach, or join another community cleanup project. This activity is available for Grades 4-5, 6-8, and 9-12, within the "Solutions" unit. 

Students engineer an artistic and sturdy item from single-use plastics that might otherwise end up in landfills or as marine debris, effectively removing these plastics from the waste stream. This activity is available for Grades 4-5, 6-8, and 9-12, within the "Solutions" unit. 

Student "Green Teams" analyze school waste, work with school and community partners to reduce, reuse and recycle materials, and set goals to make a difference locally and globally. This activity is available for Grades 4-5, 6-8, and 9-12, within the "Solutions" unit. 

Students will explore the mathematical concept of probability in the context of marine debris in the ocean. Using a spinner with items an animal could potentially ingest, students calculate the probability that the animal will encounter marine debris instead of food.

Students focus on one characteristic of some marine debris – the “loop” shape – and learn how marine debris items with this shape negatively impact sea lions. This activity is available for Grades 4-5, within the "Impacts" unit. 

Students use a model to make observations about how an animal entangled in marine debris might be affected. Then they play a game that demonstrates how plastics in the ocean can be ingested by animals. This activity is available for Grades 4-5, within the "Impacts" unit. 

In this lesson, students will collect debris on their school grounds,“x” number of miles from the ocean and compare the quantity of plastic in the sample with a similar sample at the mouth of the river, where it empties into the ocean.

This interdisciplinary lesson centers around a storybook and three related classroom activities. In the story, three children work together to learn about surface currents and the seafaring history of a plastic duck found on a beach. Students engage in reading, writing, and science process skills. This activity is available for Grades 4-5, within the "Sources and Transport" unit.