The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is an intriguing and publicized environmental problem. This swirling soup of trash up to 10 meters deep and just below the water surface is composed mainly of non-degradable plastics. These plastic materials trap aquatic life and poison them by physical blockage or as carriers of toxic pollutants. The problem relates to materials science and the advent of plastics in modern life, an example of the unintended consequences of technology. Through exploring this complex issue, students gain insight into aspects of chemistry, oceanography, fluids, environmental science, life science and even international policy. As part of the GIS unit, the topic is a source of content for students to create interesting maps communicating something that they will likely begin to care about as they learn more.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Coral reefs are important ocean ecosystems. However, they have been declining in recent years due to human activities, including elevated nitrate in the water. Corals maintain complex relationships with numerous microbes, including the dinoflagellate algae Symbiodiniaceae and bacteria. To better understand the impact of nitrate on coral and their resident microbes, researchers recently examined coral and microbial gene expression changes in larval Pocillopora damicornis. Under elevated nitrate conditions, the Symbiodiniaceae algae generally hoarded more nutrients for its own growth. Normally Symbiodiniaceae share nutrients with the coral, so this was a shift from a mutualistic relationship to a parasitic one, which led to impaired development in the larval coral. However, the prokaryotic microbes might reduce this negative interaction by restraining Symbiodiniaceae growth, which partially restores coral larval development..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Students learn what causes hurricanes and what engineers do to help protect people from destruction caused by hurricane winds and rain. Research and data collection vessels allow for scientists and engineers to model and predict weather patterns and provide forecasts and storm warnings to the public. Engineers are also involved in the design and building of flood-prevention systems, such as levees and floodwalls. During the 2005 hurricane season, levees failed in the greater New Orleans area, contributing to the vast flooding and destruction of the historic city. In the associated activity, students learn how levees work, and they build their own levees and put them to the test!

This course covers the development of the fundamental equations of fluid mechanics and their simplifications for several areas of marine hydrodynamics and the application of these principles to the solution of engineering problems. Topics include the principles of conservation of mass, momentum and energy, lift and drag forces, laminar and turbulent flows, dimensional analysis, added mass, and linear surface waves, including wave velocities, propagation phenomena, and descriptions of real sea waves. Wave forces on structures are treated in the context of design and basic seakeeping analysis of ships and offshore platforms. Geophysical fluid dynamics will also be addressed including distributions of salinity, temperature, and density; heat balance in the ocean; major ocean circulations and geostrophic flows; and the influence of wind stress. Experimental projects conducted in ocean engineering laboratories illustrating concepts taught in class, including ship resistance and model testing, lift and drag forces on submerged bodies, and vehicle propulsion.

The objective of this course is to develop an understanding of principles of marine isotope geochemistry, its systematics, and its application to the study of the behavior and history of the oceans within the earth system. The emphasis is on developing the underlying concepts and theory as well as proficiency in working with practical isotope systems. The course is divided into four sections: nuclear systematics, Earth formation and evolution, stable isotopes, and applications to the ocean system.

Using this resource, create a standalone learning module, lesson, assignment, assessment or activity.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Plastics have countless uses. However, the mismanagement of plastic waste has resulted in widespread ocean pollution, which could persist in the marine environment for hundreds of years. But growing research suggests that certain microorganisms could be harnessed to break down this waste. The key is verifying whether plastic-degrading microorganisms actually occur in the biofilms that colonize the surfaces of plastic particles, or the “plastisphere", and understanding their temporal characteristics. Recently, researchers found a high diversity of microbes that varied in their community composition over time when cultured on different types of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic. They also found evidence of PET degradation by these microorganisms based on a combined proteogenomic and metabolomic approach, which confirmed that two newly identified isolates from these communities are able to degrade PET using different pathways, one of which may be novel..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

400 million tons of plastic is produced every year, 36% of which is designed for single use or packaging. Of that number, only 9% is recycled. It’s fair to say that plastics are everywhere, including the ocean. In fact, approximately 13 million tons of plastic enters oceanic currents annually. Plastic has become a pillar of modern life. It’s going to take a deep, transformational change in humanity’s consciousness and activities regarding the ocean to break the plastic pattern.

We believe this is possible! But we need your help. By relating socio-economic and scientific concepts such as watershed and ocean currents, food chain interactions, and the greenhouse gas effect, youth will learn the history of plastic, how it transformed our consumer habits, how it harms ocean health, exacerbates the current climate crisis, and how they can protect our ocean from further plastic pollution and restore the ecosystems already affected.

Through this education kit’s activities, students will be given the knowledge, tools, and skills to break their plastic pattern and become leaders of change – and this all starts in your classroom.

Students learn about the techniques engineers have developed for changing ocean water into drinking water, including thermal and membrane desalination. They begin by reviewing the components of the natural water cycle. They see how filters, evaporation and/or condensation can be components of engineering desalination processes. They learn how processes can be viewed as systems, with unique objects, inputs, components and outputs, and sketch their own system diagrams to describe their own desalination plant designs.

The course treats the design of offshore mooring systems literally from the ground up: Starting with the anchor and its soils mechanics in the sea bed, via the mechanics of a single mooring line and system of lines. The course concludes by touching on other mooring concepts and the dynamic behavior of the moored object as a non-linear mechanical system.

In this activity, students learn about ocean currents and the difference between salt and fresh water. They use colored ice cubes to see how cold and warm water mix and how this mixing causes currents. Also, students learn how surface currents occur due to wind streams. Lastly, they learn how fresh water floats on top of salt water, the difference between water in the ocean and fresh water throughout the planet, and how engineers are involved in the design of ocean water systems for human use.

The deep continental margins were once perceived as monotonous mud slopes of limited ecological or environmental concern. Technological advances now reveal unexpected diversity, with a mosaic of lush habitats and ecosystems that support varied and unusual species fundamental to the health of the ocean and our own lives. Join Scripps biological oceanographer Lisa Levin as she reveals how changes in ocean temperature and chemistry, as well as growing economic opportunities, are placing new pressures on deep-ocean ecosystems, just as we are getting to know them. (56 minutes)

The ocean absorbs almost half of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities, changing its chemistry in ways that may have significant effects on marine ecosystems. Join Scripps marine chemist Andrew Dickson as he explains what we know --Đ and what we don't --Đ about this emerging problem. (56 minutes)

Join research oceanographer and photographer Dale Stokes for a global photographic journey featuring ships, submarines, underwater habitats, and both poles. This presentation includes a decade of images documenting exotic locations underwater and topside and a variety of unusual vessels and research instruments. (58 minutes)

Believe it or not, your life depends on algae! Join Scripps' Institution's Russell Chapman as he discusses the important roles algae have played in the development of life as we know it. (55 minutes)

Join UCSD's Kim Prather to find out about the latest developments in research under way at UCSD to help clean up the air in California. (56 minutes)

Join Graham Kent, director of Scripps Instiotution of OceanographyŐs Visualization Center, for a cutting-edge presentation providing a futuristic tour of plate boundary Evolution along the western United States. (57 minutes)

In the late 1970s, scientists conducting a geologic investigation of the ocean floor in the Pacific made a startling discovery - deep ocean hot springs populated by a host of organisms never before seen. Join Dr. Horst Felbeck as he describes his fascinating research into what makes life possible in this seemingly inhospitable environment. (43 minutes)

Join Scripps Institutions' David Sandwell and explore how the topography of the ocean floor reveals the inner workings of our Planet. (49 minutes)

Explore the discovery and understanding of marine symbionts that may provide novel sources of new drugs with Scripps Institutions' Margo Haygood. (27 minutes)