Home Florida Bay Coastal Clean up Public Science Day 1999 Creative Writing Teacher Tips

Coastal Clean up '98

Participants: K - 4th Grade

Students in all three schools learned about Florida ecosystems. Teachers focused on the effect humans can have on the ecosystem and the important interaction between man and the environment. In order to see first hand some of the damage man causes the environment and the consequences of this damage, students, parents and teachers went to various locations in Miami - Dade County, Florida to participate in a coastal clean up.

Although students from each school were at different sites, the teachers had collaborated previous to the activity in order to plan for the sharing of information that would take place after the event. While at each of the sites teachers collected water samples. Back in the classroom experiments were conducted to test the salinity of the water. Students and teachers wanted to see if the levels varied depending on the location from which it was collected and try to figure out what might contribute to this.

As experiments were completed students shared their results via the internet using e-mail. They discussed some of the possible explanations for the differences.

What did do we do with the garbage?	Let's do some creative recycling!
We created Junkman!	He served as a reminder for days of just how much we are polluting our land and water.