Humans and The Ocean
The article “Dead Whale Found With 88 Pounds of Plastic Inside Body in the Philippines” is discussing the sad truth of plastics ending up in the ocean and then being consumed by one marine animal or another. The whale was found with a calcified brick of plastic bags and other one-use plastic disposables. A man who witnessed the necropsy and stated that the amount of garbage found in this whale’s stomach is the most he’s ever seen in a sea animal before. This is important to pay attention to, because we are killing and endangering the lives of so many species of animals with out disposable plastic waste. These animals supply a vast majority of the world with food, not to mention the earth with biodiversity. Without them people will begin to starve and the planet will begin to rot.
The content standards that this article and activity connect with are the first, “Content Standard 1 — Students access, synthesize, and evaluate information to communicate and apply social studies knowledge to real world situations,” and the third, “Content Standard 3 — Students apply geographic knowledge and skills (e.g., location, place, human/environment interactions, movement, and regions).” The Grand Challenge that this connects to is “Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet.” The instruction method I would use for this activity is the re-quest routine from our 50 Routines book. I feel as though this method will help students truly understand what is happening as a result of human pollution.
I would expect students to ask questions like, “Do you know how much plastic the average marine animal consumes in its life?” or “Why is there so much plastic going into the oceans?” or “How many animals die from consuming plastic in the ocean in a year?”
For this activity students will be required to ask questions about the article. I would start off by reading through the entire article as a class, either popcorn reading or just calling on volunteers. Then I would have students reread the first paragraph and formulate a question. I would expect a question like, “Do you know how much plastic the whale was found with in its stomach?” After I demonstrated what I expect them to do, I would partner students up and assign one with the role of the questioner and the other with the role of the answerer. Then I would explain that after the questioner asks four questions it is time for students to then switch roles. Therefore, the questioner would now be the answerer and the answerer would now be the questioner. I would then write that they need to reread paragraphs 3, 5, 7 and the last to formulate and ask/answer their questions. I would have each student write down their four questions and turn it in at the end of class.
