This lesson is part of an Idea Set called Tracking Our Plastic: Sea to Source.

Preparation

Recommended Prior Activity:

• The Power of Plastic

Resources Provided:

• Videos (in carousel above)
  • Tracking Plastics from Sea to Source
  • Sea to Source: Collecting Geospatial Data
  • Sea to Source: Collecting Observational Data
  • Sea to Source: Collecting Socioeconomic Data
• Handout: Sea to Source: Data Organizer (linked above)

Required Technology:

• Internet access
• One computer per pair
• Monitor/screen
• Projector
• Speakers

Physical Space:

• Classroom

Grouping:

• Jigsaw grouping
• Large-group learning

Overview

National Geographic’s "Sea to Source: Ganges" expedition is an international female-led effort to understand how plastic pollution moves along one of the Earth’s largest waterways, the Ganges River. The scientist-explorers leading this work collect many different types of data, hunting for geospatial, observational, and social science information in their efforts to track plastic. The same data types can be employed to study plastic pollution in watersheds around the world.

Scientists use a variety of data collection strategies to study plastics in watersheds, and each yields different information about the environment.

• Geospatial data tracks locations—for example, the latitude and longitude of a piece of plastic pollution.
• Observational data can encompass many types of information gleaned through simple recognition (such as the number of plastic bottles at a data collection site) or measured with tools (such as the weight of plastic pollution on a scale).
• Finally, social science data focuses on people, culture, and society—for example, interviews with residents and local businesses might reveal barriers to plastic recycling.

Objectives

Students will:

• Identify relevant data collection strategies.
• Locate a river’s source and mouth.
• Draw parallels between local and distant communities.

Teaching Methods

• Discussions: Oral, and sometimes written, exchange of opinions—usually to analyze, clarify, or reach conclusions about issues, questions, or problems.
• Jigsaw: The Jigsaw method is a cooperative learning technique in which students work in small groups. Jigsaw can be used in a variety of ways for a variety of goals, but it is primarily used for the acquisition and presentation of new material, review, or informed debate. In this method, each group member is assigned to become an "expert" on some aspect of a unit of study. After reading about their area of expertise, the experts from different groups meet to discuss their topic, and then return to their groups and take turns teaching their topics to their groupmates.
• Visual Instruction: Instruction with a great variety of illustrative materials such as visual slides, films, models, and specimens may be utilized as aids in pupil understanding or appreciation.

Skills Summary

This activity targets the following skills:

• Geographic Skills
  • Asking Geographic Questions
  • Acquiring Geographic Information
  • Answering Geographic Questions
• Science and Engineering Practices:
  • Planning and carrying out investigations
  • Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information
• 21st Century Student Outcomes
  • Learning and Innovation Skills
  • Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
  • Communication and Collaboration
  • Life and Career Skills
  • Leadership and Responsibility
• 21st Century Themes
  • Global Awareness
  • Civic Literacy
  • Environmental Literacy
• Critical Thinking Skills
  • Understanding
  • Evaluating

Directions

1. Introduce the “Sea to Source: Ganges” river expedition by viewing and discussing a video.

• Remind students that they will be collecting data on local plastic pollution.
• Introduce the “Sea to Source: Ganges” expedition as an effort by an international team of scientists to collect similar information along the Ganges (Ganga) River.
• Show the Tracking Plastics from Sea to Source video (see carousel) (4:18), prompting students to be ready to discuss the following questions after viewing:
  • Who: Who is running this expedition? (An international, female-led team)
  • What: What are these Explorers doing? (Conducting research on plastic waste in the Ganges River watershed)
  • When: When did this expedition take place? (Summer of 2019)
  • Where: Where did this expedition occur? (India and Bangladesh)
  • Why: Why did these Explorers choose to perform this expedition? (Plastic waste from the Ganges River is a major contributor to pollution in the world’s oceans.)
  • How: How did these Explorers go about their work? (They performed research in three teams, which collected different types of data.)
• Record student responses in a visible location and prompt note-taking.

2. Assist students as they engage with geographic information to ground their understanding of the “Sea to Source: Ganges” expedition and its possible parallels in local watersheds.

• Open National Geographic MapMaker and solicit students’ geographic knowledge (prior and from the video) by asking:
  • Where in the world is the Ganges River located? (India and Bangladesh)
  • Where is its source (starting place) and where is its mouth (ending place)? (Its source is in the mountains of northern India, and its mouth is on the plains of Bangladesh.)
• Move the map to the students’ state or county, employing a new set of questions to help them connect the remote “Sea to Source: Ganges” expedition to their own local region. Ask students to jot down their answers and converse with a partner before sharing with the entire class:
  • Which rivers or streams have you seen or visited in our community?
  • Where are their sources and where are their mouths?
    • If students struggle with this prompt, ask them first to simply identify any evidence of water they have seen recently. Even if it is a dry riverbed that runs for only part of the year or water rushing to a storm drain—it counts!
• Use MapMaker to help students locate their local rivers and streams, identifying sources and mouths. Note that they share these features with the Ganges River from the expedition.

3. Guide students to generate data collection strategies in small groups through a video jigsaw.

• Divide the class into small groups in a multiple of three (e.g., three, six, or nine groups), and once again, connect back to the work that students will undergo as they run a similar expedition to “Sea to Source: Ganges” in their own community. To do so, they must have strategies to collect data about the local waterways they previously identified (see Tips section).
• Assign groups equally to watch one of three video profiles provided in the carousel above. The videos feature the scientists leading data various types of data collection for the “Sea to Source: Ganges” expedition.
  • Jenna Jambeck: Sea to Source: Collecting Geospatial Data (5:40)
  • Imogen Napper: Sea to Source: Collecting Observational Data (5:42)
  • Lilly Sedaghat: Sea to Source: Collecting Socioeconomic Data (5:32)
• Explain the jigsaw task to students:
  • Watch the assigned video and, in the Sea to Source: Data Organizer handout, create a list of the data collection strategies used by this scientist’s team and the information these strategies yield.
  • Emphasize that groups may need to watch the video or portions of it multiple times for clarity and completeness.
  • Prepare to share the comprehensive lists of data-collection strategies associated with their data type with the class.

4. Lead a class discussion to refine a comprehensive list of data collection strategies.

• Coming back together as a class, use the strategies that students share from their Sea to Source: Data Organizer handout to create a large, permanent chart that can be revisited in future class periods, with columns for data type, strategy, and information.
• Prompt students to form mixed groups comprised of all three data type experts (geospatial, observational, and social science), and reflect on what they’ve learned about local waterways and the Ganges River from the videos during this activity. Ask students:
  • Which of these data-collection strategies would be most helpful for studying our own local waterways? Why?
  • Do these data-collection strategies need to be modified to collect information here in our community?
• In a visible place, record student responses for all three data types and encourage students to record their own and classmates’ responses in their notes.
  • Encourage students to modify technically challenging strategies or come up with feasible alternatives to collect the same information, so that the class has an extensive list of possibilities for their own local data collection.

Informal Assessment

• Observe students’ responses as they engage with maps of rivers and conduct the data collection jigsaw to gain a sense of their geographic awareness of local waterways and possible strategies for studying them. Use this information to gauge how they may approach watershed modeling and data collection practice in later activities.

Extending the Learning

• Step 2: This step can be expanded into a longer activity in which students are prompted to think deeply and conduct research to determine what characteristics are shared by all rivers, and which characteristics may be limited to some (for example, all rivers run downhill, but some rivers are above-ground and others are below). This work can be completed in the context of comparing and contrasting the Ganges and a local river.

Tips & Modifications

• Step 2: This step can be completed with each student, or pairs of students, examining an online map of their own.
• Step 3: If time is limited or students need more practice gleaning information from the video before independent work, this step can be modified from a jigsaw to a whole-class activity by watching all three data collection videos as a group and moving immediately to Step 4. Alternatively, you may wish to model the jigsaw task by watching a short clip of one video, gleaning one or two strategies as a class, and then moving to group work.

Connections to National Standards, Principles, and Practices

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), available through the National Science Teacher's Association:

• Performance Expectations:
  • MS-ESS3-3. Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
• Science & Engineering Practices:
  • Obtaining, evaluating, and Communicating Information: Communicate scientific and/or technical information (e.g. about a proposed object, tool, process, system) in writing and/or through oral presentations.

Common Core State Standards (CCSS):

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.7.1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 7 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.