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The following can be told as a nice story to the younger aged students and show them this video
instead:
“The Great Pacific Garbage Patch”

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10

When Captain Moore was sailing in 1997 from Hawaii to Southern California, he saw far from
civilization in the middle of the Pacific Ocean pieces of plastic from large to very small floating but
also in different layers of the water column. Little did he know back then, that he would discover
one of the world’s largest environmental disasters. This phenomenon he called as “Plastic soup”.

The plastic soup consists of large plastic items, which due to the sunlight exposure and weathering
caused by waves, tend to break down into microplastics floating in the ocean. This concentration
of plastic in the water is so high that makes the plastic soup impossible to ever be completely
cleaned up. Unfortunately, this high amount of microplastics doesn’t only float in the middle of
the ocean but it’s also present in inland waterways, on land, including the agricultural land, as well
as in the air we breathe. (Plastic Soup Foundation, 2014)

Additional Resources

• Find out more about water pollution/facts/quiz:
https://www.ducksters.com/science/environment/water_pollution.php#:~:text=Wat
er%20pollution%20is%20when%20waste,nature's%20water%20cycle%20as%20well
• Lesson plans for water pollution:
https://extension.usu.edu/waterquality/educator-resources/lessonplans/wp
• Calculate their water footprint:
https://www.watercalculator.org/?cid=1408

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the
views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the

information contained therein.