Learning about an ocean of trash

Marcus Eriksen’s dream boat doesn’t have fancy equipment and a hulking engine. It’s 14 feet long and is made of 800 plastic bottles. Its sail is comprised of 15 polyester shirts, and its ropes are formed from 1,000 plastic bags.

“The Fluke” was a strong visual reminder on Tuesday to the students at St. Catherine Catholic School of their environmental impact.

Eriksen, of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, was invited to the campus by technology teacher Justin Stephenson, who is working with a team of seventh-graders on a marine science competition sponsored by USC and Quiksilver.

Eriksen, considered a leading researcher on the topic, was asked to teach the students about the Pacific Gyre, a huge oceanic swirl of trash nearly twice the size of Texas where the mass of plastic debris outweighs plankton by six times.

“These kids have worked really hard at organizing this,” Stephenson said.

The science team has created a video and online activity on the topic, and are painting trash containers on campus with ocean themes to encourage the depositing of plastics, he said.

On Tuesday, Eriksen led science teacher Judy Keneipp’s sixth-graders and the seventh-grade science team through a series of labs in which they got up close and personal with the effects of the gyre.

Eriksen, who has traveled to the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” several times, described it as “a giant toilet bowl.”

For Eriksen’s first lab, he showed how albatross birds on Midway Island ingest plastics they find in the gyre. As the birds regurgitate food for their young, the plastics are then eaten by the chicks.

Eriksen held up a picture showing 20 to 30 bottlecaps and a cigarette lighter, among other things, inside a chick’s skeleton.

He then had students sort through actual debris from the island. The kids divided the debris between plastics and natural materials. They then recorded the most common color of plastic represented in their piles.

White plastic was most prevalent by far; students took turns hypothesizing the birds’ motivation for favoring white plastic.

One suggested that it’s the most common color of plastic manufactured; another suggested that the white plastic is more highly contrasted with the land and water. A third suggested that it looks most like the birds’ foods.

Eriksen then brought out jars filled with samples of the water in the gyre, 1,000 miles off the California coast, where he has found plastic water bottles.

“This is my chance to let you see the gyre for yourself,” he said.

In addition to jellyfish and the only ocean-dwelling insect in the world, the jars also contained bits of the ever-present plastic.

“What goes around, comes around. We’re right on the coast; we’re hurting ourselves,” said student Maddie Renezeder, who’s part of the science team.

Eriksen also taught the student body about gyres at two assemblies on Tuesday.

“We need to know what we are doing to our own world,” he told kindergarten through fourth-graders at the morning assembly. “Everything you do has an impact on the world.”

Eriksen drove the point home for the younger kids by discussing his personal experiences with Hurricane Katrina.

“My family is from New Orleans,” he said. Eriksen first described the ordeal he experienced in getting to his brother’s house after the hurricane. The house had lost half its roof; other residents had lost everything.

“While I was cleaning out the debris,” he said, “I began to think about what we put into our houses.”

He held up a string of footwear, typical of some of the many that he picked up near his brother’s house. A bright pink Croc shoe attracted giggles.

Eriksen pointed to the Croc and asked what kids would do if they got a rip in theirs. After many said they would throw them away, he began to build his case.

“In our culture, we are being told to buy and buy and buy all the time. But my dad, he has one pair of shoes that he’s owned for 30 years.”

The kids gaped.

Eriksen held up a canvas bag, suggesting it be used in place of plastic bags at the store.

“I have one of those,” a student told his friend proudly.

Eriksen then asked the assembly if they had any questions.

Dozens of hands shot into the air.