Plastics in the ocean: resources for biologists
The resources in this list will support the use of the Catalyst article Plastics in the ocean.
How do you know which products contain microbeads? App
Provide students with a range of products, such as toothpaste and shampoo and ask them to discuss which ones they think contain microbeads.
Download the ‘Beat the Microbead’ App onto a tablet or smart phone. Students can then scan the bar code of the product and the App will tell them if it contains microbeads. Which were predicted? Are there any surprises?
The reviews for this App are not all favourable. How does using the App compare with an Internet search on the products ingredients? How are microbeads listed in ingredients?
More information can be found on the website: http://www.beatthemicrobead.org/
Big Bag Ban
In this activity students look at the issue of use of plastic shopping bags. The resource contains a power point and student sheets as well as teacher notes on how to run the activity. The activity involves students acting as "expert witnesses" and answering questions from other students who then formulate a view on the problem based on the presented evidence. A nice approach to getting students to debate a topical issue allowing them to gather and balance evidence for and against approaches to solving the environmental issues created by our dependence on plastics.
Practical Microbiology for Secondary Schools
There is both an open ended investigation page 42 and a guided practical called Microbes and Cellulose p16 and 17
Marine conservation and plastic
Useful data about Marine Conservation and plastics can be found on page 10. This data appears alongside information that can be used to show the scope of a conservation organisations work.
Cool seas
There is information on Plankton and Filter feeders – suitable for SEN
Bioaccumulation
An article about bioaccumulation and biomagnification of DDT
The worksheet is here https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/contaminants-online/pages/toolsteachers/ttfiles/lesson2/activity%202_foodweb_key.pdf
Toxins and food webs
A very useful webpage for students to find out about marine food webs and bioaccumulation of toxins.
Modelling bioaccumulation
There is a nice set of photos here for a marine food chain/web that could be printed onto cards to give to students to model bioaccumulation. You need lots of phytoplankton (algae) and or zooplankton (copepods) who pass the plastic nanoparticles on to a smaller number of organisms. Place a tiddlewink on each of the zooplankton, and then pass the tiddlewinks up the foodchain, with each trophic level accumulating more.
In the Pink: Colour from Carotenes
This Catalyst article explains how in nature, bioamplification causes substances to become more concentrated as they move from eater to eaten along a food chain. This sequence occurs in relation to the concentration of pesticides like DDT along a food chain, and causes problems for those animals, like birds of prey, at the top. However, bioamplification can be more benign than that. It leads too much of the colour in nature as the article explains.
