Interested in staying up to date on marine debris resources to incorporate into your classroom? Sign up for the NOAA Marine Debris Program’s new Educator Newsletter on our homepage. This quarterly e-newsletter highlights new or beloved marine debris educational resources that may be useful for educators of all kinds. The first issue goes out tomorrow.
It’s that time of year again—students and teachers are headed back to school. Whether you’ve been back in class for a few weeks or are just gearing up for the start of school, you’re likely feeling those end-of-summer blues. Thankfully, the NOAA Marine Debris Program has lots of resources for classroom use that can help make school days interactive and fun while encouraging students to be part of the solution to marine debris!
Encourage your students to get involved by participating in a cleanup with your class. If a field trip isn’t in the cards, clean up your school yard! Students will be able to make the connection between the trash they find and the items they use every day. If you’d prefer to keep students in the classroom, raise awareness of marine debris by hanging up one of our posters or our 2018 Marine Debris Calendar. Even better, encourage them to contribute to these outreach materials by participating in the NOAA Marine Debris Program’s annual art contest! This year’s contest starts in October and winners will be featured in next year’s calendar.
If you’re looking to fully incorporate marine debris into your classroom, check out the variety of marine debris curricula that are available on our website. If you don’t have the time to implement the entire thing, most of the available curricula can be broken into individual lessons and activities. If you’re just interested in a brief activity to get the kids excited, take a look at our Trash Talk Webinar for Educators—it gives a demo of several marine debris activities that can be great for classroom use. Even better, pair it with the Regional Emmy® Award-winning Trash Talk video to get the marine debris conversation started.
Start the school year off right with marine debris resources!