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Activity 2 - Nurdles what's the problem?

Learning Intention:

To understand how nurdles accumulate metals and how they affect food webs.

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Curriculum links

Interactions between organisms can be described in terms of food chains and food webs and can be affected by human activity (VCSSU093)
 

Communicate ideas, findings and solutions to problems including identifying impacts and limitations of conclusions and using appropriate scientific language and representations (VCSIS113)

 

Success criteria

  • Communicate effectively the process of how metal and nurdles combine using images

  • Able to construct a food web

  • Explain how humans are involved in a food chain

  • Explain how adding external substances into an ecosystem will affect food web

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Justification

This activity helps students to see the connection between their scientific learning and contemporary examples. Often students only learn about current environmental issues at home and not a school, so informing students about these issues in an educational manner is valuable.

The ecosystem is complex, students need to understand how different parts interact with each other. In media, humans are normally placed as the top priority when there is an environmental issue but in this activity, we focus more on other species since it is important that students understand that we are not the only party in this world and all life needs to be protected.

 

Background information

If you read the articles before you teach this activity you will have all the required information for this sequence.

Video about how nurdles spread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpVpJsDjWj8

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Activity guide

Part 1:
Example of student work using images

 

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Part 2:
Sample answers

1.How do metals stick onto the surface of nurdles?

Over time metal enters the ocean, through pollution or runoff, once floating in the ocean plastics have a tendency to attract these metals which collect on their surface

2.Why is this metal accumulation an issue for aquatic life?
Think about the ingestion of nurdles. If ingested by aquatic life, the metals can be absorbed into the body which can damage the animal's bodily functions

3.What do we have to worry about in terms of heavy metals?

Many of the metals that attract to the plastics are highly toxic, the plastic tends to concentrate these metals on its surface meaning they pose a significant risk. Since we eat much marine life we also absorb the heavy metals into our bodies as these metals take a long time to decompose.

4.What do we as humans need to do to combat this issue?

We either need to reduce our plastic consumption or implement better methods so that plastic does not enter the ocean

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Part 3:
Students may need to google an animal to see what it eats, or you might want to suggest some students could add for example sharks or plankton
 

Sample answers

1.What is the relationship between nurdles and the food chain?

Nurdles travel up the food chain, however, enters in the middle as the bottom of the chain would not ingest nurdles

2.Why do some animals have significantly more nurdle ingestion than others?

Carnivores have a significantly higher count as they would ingest all the nurdles that their food would eat

3.What effects do nurdles have in this ecosystem?

Animals that consume the nurdles would have a high mortality rate, meaning there would be less food available for predators.

4.Which species would benefit and which would suffer?

Producers would do well since they do not consume nurdles, however, primary consumers would suffer as they consume nurdles. All consumers would suffer since they would either consume nurdles or consume a species that consumes nurdles.

5.Is hurdle consumption a cause for concern for humanity’s health?

There is no direct damage to human health, but over an extended period of time if this continues poison from plastic and metals would eventually reach humans

6.Research the term bioaccumulation and use it to describe the process that is occurring here.

Bioaccumulation is the gradual accumulation of substances in an organism. As more and more species consume nurdles, plastic would bioaccumulate in their bodies and continue into future generations. Predators would also accumulate toxins as they consumed more and more affected prey.

 

Formative assessment

Using the student's maps from activity 1 you can see if they understand the concept of what nurdles are and how they are connected to plastic.

Looking at the students' food webs you can see if they understand how to set up and connect species, also how they add humans and nurdles into the web will show if they understand how external factors affect an ecosystem.

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