Plastic in the Ocean: Get the Word Out at McDonalds!
Figure 1. A McDonald's in Romford, Essex, UK, the kind of hypothetical location where one might hand out a Great Pacific Garbage Patch newsletter about consumer plastics.Copyright stock.xchng [PD} http://www.sxc.hu/photo/183681
Students take part in a hypothetical scenario that challenges them to inform customers at a local restaurant of how their use and disposal of plastics relates/contributes to the Great Pacific garbage patch (GPGP). What students ultimately do is research information on the plastics pollution in the oceans and present that information as a short, eye-catching newsletter suitable to hand out to restaurant customers. This activity focuses on teaching students to conduct their own research on a science-technology related topic and present it in a compelling manner that includes citing source information without plagiarism. By doing this, students gain experience and skills with general online searching as well as word processing and written and visual communication.
Engineers are often relied upon to be technical experts for their project managers, the public at large, and government officials. The background knowledge they acquire and the type of thinking they use is essential to understanding issues that affect many people and have many technical facets that must be thoughtfully understood to elucidate causes and consequences of the issue at hand. In this activity, students learn how to gather information about a topic of importance and reliably and honestly inform others so that decision-making is improved. This experience exposes students to a real-life engineering challenge that gives them a concrete experience of what engineering is like and makes them more literate in understanding engineering-related issues in the world.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Articulate in verbal and in written form some basic information about the Great Pacific garbage patch (GPGP).
- Express and support an opinion about the conditions, causes or solutions for the GPGP.
- Demonstrate the skill of gathering online (or other) sources of information on the GPGP without plagiarizing either in the form of 1) directly copying text from articles (that is, improper paraphrasing) or 2) providing imcorrect or absent citations.
- Mix pictures and explanatory text into a short simple format that is both eye-catching and informative while explaining the GPGP environmental impacts and posing environmental engineering solutions to the problem.