The Pacific Ocean supports a diverse ecosystem, providing habitat for many species of plankton, fish, seabirds, turtles, sharks and whales. However, the accumulation of plastic pollution has created vast garbage patches like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which covers an area twice the size of Texas and contains over 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic. This plastic pollution kills over 100,000 marine animals every year through ingestion and entanglement. Efforts to reduce plastic use and properly dispose of waste are needed to minimize humanity's impact on the Pacific Ocean ecosystem.
The Pacific Ocean supports a diverse ecosystem, providing habitat for many species of plankton, fish, seabirds, turtles, sharks and whales. However, the accumulation of plastic pollution has created vast garbage patches like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which covers an area twice the size of Texas and contains over 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic. This plastic pollution kills over 100,000 marine animals every year through ingestion and entanglement. Efforts to reduce plastic use and properly dispose of waste are needed to minimize humanity's impact on the Pacific Ocean ecosystem.
The Pacific Ocean supports a diverse ecosystem, providing habitat for many species of plankton, fish, seabirds, turtles, sharks and whales. However, the accumulation of plastic pollution has created vast garbage patches like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which covers an area twice the size of Texas and contains over 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic. This plastic pollution kills over 100,000 marine animals every year through ingestion and entanglement. Efforts to reduce plastic use and properly dispose of waste are needed to minimize humanity's impact on the Pacific Ocean ecosystem.
The Pacific Ocean supports a diverse ecosystem, providing habitat for many species of plankton, fish, seabirds, turtles, sharks and whales. However, the accumulation of plastic pollution has created vast garbage patches like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which covers an area twice the size of Texas and contains over 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic. This plastic pollution kills over 100,000 marine animals every year through ingestion and entanglement. Efforts to reduce plastic use and properly dispose of waste are needed to minimize humanity's impact on the Pacific Ocean ecosystem.
Biotic: plankton, fish, sea birds, turtles, sharks, whales, etc.
Carrying Capacity: changes in the Pacific ocean due to trash pollution killing off ecosystems reduces capacity
Resources: water,aquatic plants and marine life for food, oxidation in the water, sunlight for photosynthesis Competition between predators (top of chart) for the prey (bottom of chart).
Parasitism/Predation where the
predator kills the prey
Commensalism in the smaller
animals living in plants such as the sea anemones for protection
Mutualism where smaller fish get
their food by cleaning bigger fish Ocean Plastic Crisis Pacific Garbage Patch ❏ Covers 994,193 square miles ❏ 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic ❏ 80,000 tons of garbage ❏ 99% of everything is plastic Why is this an issue? ❏ 100,000 marine animals die each year from garbage in our oceans ❏ It can take anywhere between 20-1000 years for a plastic bag to break up. And they break down into polymers and toxic chemicals ❏ Around 46,000 pieces of plastic in every square mile of ocean ❏ 13,000-15,000 pieces of plastic are dumped into the ocean every day ❏ Scientists have identified 200 areas declared as ‘dead zones’ where no living organisms can grow. Both these beached whales were killed by ingesting plastic As well as these turtles And these sea birds Driving Questions How do humans have a lasting impact on species or populations and this environment?
❏ Humans produce this trash
❏ Humans dump this trash into our oceans ❏ Our trash kills off populations and create dead zones in our oceans ❏ This disrupt homeostasis in the ecosystems How can we minimize humans impact on this environment?
❏ Reduce trash in our oceans
❏ Produce less plastic ❏ Recycle and reuse ❏ Properly dispose of trash (don’t litter) ❏ Use more biodegradable object ❏ Efforts to keep trash away from beaches and oceans How can we humans prioritize the solutions to minimize human impact on this environment given social, environmental, and economic factors? ❏ Spreading awareness of our impact tackles the social issue ❏ More volunteers and donations for current organizations tackles the environmental issue ❏ More research and funding for groups creating earth friendly products can make these products more available and mainstream tackles the economic issue Our Solution Our Effort We wanted to actively make a difference in our community to help reduce the trash flow coming from our coasts.
We decided the best way to do this was hold a beach cleanup with volunteers at our local beaches Beach Clean Up Ocean Beach, three hours, nine people, twelve buckets of trash What we collected ❏ Tiny pieces of plastic ❏ Glass and plastic bottles ❏ Bottle caps ❏ Cardboard ❏ ❏ ❏ Plastic bags Paper Styrofoam 23.5 lbs ❏ Tinfoil ❏ And more Website
https://cleanupourbeachesstem.weebly.com/ Current Foundations Ocean Conservatory
