Teacher Preparation

Overarching learning goals: Students build an understanding of their personal impact on the planet by looking at how rubbish enters the marine environment. They make comparisons between areas they know well and the estimated area of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Teacher Content Information

What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

It is a gyre (a large system of rotating ocean currents) of marine debris particles in the central North Pacific Ocean. It is thought that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was formed by oceanic currents and wind movement.

How big is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

The real answer is: no one really knows. It’s much harder to measure how big something is in water compared to when it is on land. The Pacific Ocean itself is estimated to be between 155,557,000 and 165,250,000 square kilometres! The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is thought to be between 700,000 and 15,000,000 square kilometres.

Read more about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch here.

Watch more about Great Pacific Garbage Patch here:

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch from Ben Segall on Vimeo.

Before beginning this lesson, print or photocopy one copy of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch worksheet for each of your students. You may need to do a few extra maps of Australia if you live in a smaller state or territory.

Glossary

Renewable resource - a natural resource, such as solar energy, water, or wood, that is never used up or that can be replaced by new growth.
Non-renewable resource - a resource that cannot regenerate or be replaced.
Litter - waste that has been allowed to escape into our environment, potentially causing pollution and other problems.
Waste - any material that is no longer needed for its original purpose.
Rubbish - waste that needs to be stored as landfill. It is the material that can’t be recycled, reused or composted.
Green waste - plant-derived material that will decompose.
Recyclable - waste from which useful material can be extracted for reuse or recycling.
Landfill - a site that stores disposed waste material.

Teaching Sequence

Step 1

Get your students to watch the video The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This video introduces students to some important problems caused by rubbish getting into our marine environments. It introduces the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is the topic for this lesson. Note: 1 pound = 0.4 kg

Step 2

Use a 'Think, Pair, Share' routine to get students to estimate the size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Once they have an answer, ask students to write their estimate figure on the board. Now, write on the board the estimated size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch - researchers estimate it to be between 700,000 and 15,000,000 square kilometres. Ask students to compare their estimates with these figures and discuss their assumptions.

In this activity, the level of assistance given to students will vary according to their ages and abilities. Students can cut up the maps of their home state and see how many would fit into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Teachers may like to use prepared cut-outs for this activity. Ask students to estimate the area in square kilometres, using the Student Worksheet.

Step 3

Ask students to estimate how long it takes to cover certain distances. Questions you might ask include:

Who in the class has been on the longest car journey?
What changes in the landscape did you seen on a long journey you have taken?
If you were sailing through nothing but rubbish for that same amount of time, how would you feel about what the landscape looked like?
What would that make you wonder about our waste management habits?

Step 4

Discuss with your students why we need to think about waste differently. Highlight the idea that everything we now consider rubbish began its existence as a natural resource. Explain that our Earth has a limited amount of resources. Ask students what 'closing the loop' means. This refers to the continuous life-cycles of resources. Examples of closing the loop include the use of recycled materials instead of raw materials during the manufacturing of new products. Can students apply the concept of ‘closing the loop’ as a possible solution to marine pollution, such as that presented in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

Step 5

Working in groups, ask students to create an infographic about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, for example how big it is in relation to other geographical areas with which they are familiar (for example, the size of Australia, the size of their state) and/or how waste enters the marine environment (see this DIY Infographic for background information).

Extension

1. Students can create a short story about the journey of a piece of plastic. They are to plan, draft and publish an imaginative texts outlining how a particular piece of rubbish leaves someones hand and ends up in the marine environment. Ensure your students select appropriate text structure for the writing purpose and sequence content to have an impact on the audience. Use this clip as a way to get your students thinking creatively.

2. Students can investigate how marine debris affects marine animals. What impacts do the following items have on marine animals: fishing line, plastic bags, plastic drinking straws? Ask students to create a Prezi presentation on their research.

Seal the Loop - Great Pacific Garbage Patch

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