What is the Ocean Plastic Program?

The Earth’s oceans, and the interconnected cycle of water and waterways, are vital to every living thing on Earth. And yet the health of these oceans, and by extension the well-being of all life on Earth, is at risk due largely to the impacts of human activity. Plastic is everywhere in our oceans and it’s going to take a deep, transformational change in humanity’s consciousness and activities regarding the oceans to ensure healthy, sustainable life on this planet.

We believe this is possible! But we need your help. Our youth need to be made aware of their own plastic use and how their actions will have a direct impact on the environment around them. Through these resources we hope youth will become leaders of change - and this all starts in your classroom.

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This lesson will allow students to explore an important role of environmental engineers: cleaning the environment. Students will learn details about the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which was one of the most publicized and studied environmental tragedies in history. In the accompanying activity, they will try many "engineered" strategies to clean up their own manufactured oil spill and learn the difficulties of dealing with oil released into our waters.

This hands-on experiment will provide students with an understanding of the issues that surround environmental cleanup. Students will create their own oil spill, try different methods for cleaning it up, and then discuss the merits of each method in terms of effectiveness (cleanliness) and cost. They will be asked to put themselves in the place of both an environmental engineer and an oil company owner who are responsible for the clean-up.

Students learn about oil spills and their environmental and economic effects. They experience the steps of the engineering design process as they brainstorm potential methods for oil spill clean-up, and then design, build, and re-design oil booms to prevent the spread of oil spills. During a reflective session after cleaning up their oil booms, students come up with ideas on how to reduce oil consumption to prevent future oil spills.

Looking at models and maps, students explore different pathways and consequences of pollutant transport via the weather and water cycles. In an associated literacy activity, students develop skills of observation, recording and reporting as they follow the weather forecast and produce their own weather report for the class.

Students work in engineering teams to optimize cleaner energy solutions for cooking and heating in rural China. They choose between various options for heating, cooking, hot water, and lights and other electricity, balancing between the cost and health effects of different energy choices.

For students that have already been introduced to the water cycle this lesson is intended as a logical follow-up. Students will learn about human impacts on the water cycle that create a pathway for pollutants beginning with urban development and joining the natural water cycle as surface runoff. The extent of surface runoff in an area depends on the permeability of the materials in the ground. Permeability is the degree to which water or other liquids are able to flow through a material. Different substances such as soil, gravel, sand, and asphalt have varying levels of permeability. In this lesson, along with the associated activities, students will learn about permeability and compare the permeability of several different materials for the purpose of engineering landscape drainage systems.

To gain a better understanding of the roles and functions of components of the human respiratory system and our need for clean air, students construct model lungs that include a diaphragm and chest cavity. They see how air moving in and out of the lungs coincides with diaphragm movement. Then student teams design and build a prototype face mask pollution filter. They use their model lungs to evaluate their prototypes to design requirements.

Hank talks about the last major way humans are impacting the environment in this penultimate episode of Crash Course Ecology. Pollution takes many forms - from the simplest piece of litter to the more complex endocrine distruptors - and ultimately, humans are responsible for it all.

To develop an understanding of modern industrial technologies that clean up and prevent air pollution, students build and observe a variety of simple models of engineering pollutant recovery methods: scrubber, electrostatic precipitator, cyclone and baghouse. In an associated literacy activity, students become more aware of global environmental problems and play a part in their solution by writing environmental action campaign letters.

Students experience the steps of the engineering design process as they design solutions for a real-world problem that could affect their health. After a quick review of the treatment processes that municipal water goes through before it comes from the tap, they learn about the still-present measurable contamination of drinking water due to anthropogenic (human-made) chemicals. Substances such as prescription medication, pesticides and hormones are detected in the drinking water supplies of American and European metropolitan cities. Using chlorine as a proxy for estrogen and other drugs found in water, student groups design and test prototype devices that remove the contamination as efficiently and effectively as possible. They use plastic tubing and assorted materials such as activated carbon, cotton balls, felt and cloth to create filters with the capability to regulate water flow to optimize the cleaning effect. They use water quality test strips to assess their success and redesign for improvement. They conclude by writing comprehensive summary design reports.

Radiation is natural and all around us. It can be man-made too. But it's nothing new. It is, quite simply, part of our lives. RadTown USA is a virtual community showing a wide variety of radiation sources and uses as you may encounter them in everyday life. Explore this interactive, virtual community of houses, schools, laser light shows, construction equipment, flying planes, and moving trains. Each place in RadTown helps you learn about radiation sources or radiation- treated items you might find there.

Why do we care about air? Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in... most, if not all, humans do this automatically. Do we really know what is in the air we breathe? In this activity, students use M&M(TM) candies to create pie graphs that show their understanding of the composition of air. They discuss why knowing this information is important to engineers and how engineers use this information to improve technology to better care for our planet.

This EPA fact sheet provides easy-to-understand information about air pollution and how it affects human health. Topics include health risks, exposure assessment, dose-response relationships, risk assessment, and risk characterization. Simple diagrams and pictures support the text.

Students learn about five types of renewable energy that are part of engineering solutions to help people in rural communities use less and cleaner energy for cooking and heating. Specifically, students learn about the pollution and health challenges facing families in rural China, and they are introduced to the concept of optimization. Through an energy game, students differentiate between renewable and non-renewable sources of energy.

Students embark on a scavenger hunt around the school looking for indoor air pollution and mapping source locations.

Welcome to Secondary Science Implementation Support. This site from the Ministry of Education in SK has a huge collection of excellent supports for High School Science.

There are currently over 500 supports available.

Select "Support Materials" from the menu on the left.

This site houses materials developed to support teachers' implementation of secondary science courses. The Support Materials section contains materials that have been developed and refined by each of the course-specific Secondary Implementation Support teams. Teachers are free to use these materials as they wish.
Any teacher may post questions in the Discussion Board and/or share their materials. Note that copyright must be respected in all cases.

Support materials for Science 10, Health Science 20, Environmental Science 20, Physical Science 20, Chemistry 30, Physics 30, Biology 30, Earth Science 30, Computer Science 20 and Computer Science 30 have been posted.

You must be logged into Blackboard to see the supports.

This resource can help you access Blackboard as a SK Teacher if you are having difficulty: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sws.oercommons.org/media/editor/30/Accessing_Blackboard.pdf (Copy and paste this url into a browser).

Please note: You will need to click "Open this in a new window" to view the resource when the message appears.

Students learn about electricity and air pollution while building devices to measure volatile organic compounds (VOC) by attaching VOC sensors to prototyping boards. In the second part of the activity, students evaluate the impact of various indoor air pollutants using the devices they made.

Students learn about contamination and pollution, specifically in reference to soil in and around rivers. To start, groups use light sensors to take light reflection measurements of different colors of sand (dyed with various amounts of a liquid food dye), generating a set of "soil" calibration data. Then, they use a stream table with a simulated a river that has a scattering of "contaminated wells" represented by locations of unknown amounts of dye. They make visual observations and use light sensors again to take reflection measurements and refer to their earlier calibration data to determine the level of "contamination" (color dye) in each well. Acting as engineers, they determine if their measured data is comparable to visual observations. The small-scale simulated flowing river shows how contamination can spread.

In this activity, students build a water filter with activated carbon, cotton and other materials to remove chocolate powder from water.