© Matt Cramer/AMRF
Did anyone catch the Colbert Report on Wednesday night? Stephen Colbert’s guest was Captain Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF) and one of the scientists profiled in TRACKING TRASH. Personally, I would not want to be in Colbert’s hot seat … he’d have me standing on it yelling and screaming in about twenty-two seconds. Captain Moore, however, was the picture of calm and consistency, letting Colbert and his viewers know that the accumulation of plastic trash in our ocean is not a joke. Check it out for yourself (or your students) here.
As if sparring with Stephen Colbert were not enough hard work for one week, yesterday, Captain Moore and AMRF announced a new initiative called the 5 Gyres Project. Along with several other ocean conservation organizations, Captain Moore and his team will soon be visiting the five gyres* of the world ocean, sampling for plastic levels, and reporting what they find to the world. Teachers (and anyone else interested worried about this issue) will find a whole lot of useful information at the new 5 Gyre Project website.
I’m working on a compilation of these and other web and print resources for teachers using TRACKING TRASH in the classroom. It will eventually be available through my website, but if you are a teacher in need of it now, please let me know and I will send it by email.
*A gyre, for the record, is a circular pattern of ocean surface currents. There is one gyre in each major ocean basin.