PC: Microplastics Guided Review

In this guided review, you will learn about microplastics and their impacts on humans and the environment. This review seeks to outline the origins, pathways, and studies surrounding microplastics. In the following resources you will find information about the consequences of microplastic pollution will present as well as the strategies being developed to mitigate its impacts.

PC: Microplastics Lesson Plan

Students will explore the origins and consequences of our use of microplastics. They will illustrate the journey of a piece of discarded plastic and the events that transform it back into microplastics. They will examine the data that reveals the pervasive impact it is having on water and wildlife throughout the world. They will also propose possible solutions to curb microplastics pollution.

Nurdle Patrol

Nurdle Patrol started in November 2018 after a large number of plastic pellets washed up on Mustang and North Padre Islands in Texas during September 2018. We are looking to gather information about where nurdles are located, remove the nurdles from the environment, and create awareness about the nurdle issue." To access the Nurdle Patrol training video, click here

Ice Cream Scoops

To address the problems of marine plastics and public science, we created an educational tool geared towards children: the Ice Cream Scoop Trawl. This is a simple technology that children can help make and use it to learn about marine plastics. It is used to test for presence of marine plastics at the water's surface. An ice cream container is modified so that water can pass through it and fitted with a handle so that a child can pull it through water.

Plastic Soup Foundation

Stop the plastic soup tsunami as soon as possible! If we do not achieve this, we are leaving future generations with a terrible plastic plague. We are a 'single issue' environmental organization that is concerned with one thing: stopping plastic pollution at its source.

The Smog Of The Sea (Trailer)

After years of hearing about the famous "garbage patches" in the ocean's gyres, the crew is stunned to learn that the patches are a myth: the waters stretching to the horizon are clear blue, with no islands of trash in sight. But as the crew sieves the water and sorts through their haul, a more disturbing reality sets in: a fog of microplastics permeates the world's oceans...

The Lost Nurdles Polluting Texas Beaches

Last September, Jace Tunnell discovered a layer of tiny, round plastic pellets covering a beach on Padre Island off the southern coast of Texas. There were "millions of them," he recalled, "and it went on for miles." Tunnell, a marine biologist, knew exactly what the pellets were, but says he had never actually seen them before. They're called nurdles, and they're the preproduction building blocks for nearly all plastic goods, from soft-drink bottles to oil pipelines.