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the ocean cleanup launch

10/19/2018

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The book Chemistry on a Budget contains chemistry labs that are useful with inexpensive, easy to obtain materials.
 
For the 2018-19 school year, buy a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget.  It’s a great resource for your class!

There are two versions of each lab, one with a ten-question conclusion and one with directions for a full lab report.  This way the teacher has the option!  Each lab is two pages to allow for one two-sided handout. 
 
A 5-Star Customer Review of Chemistry on a Budget at amazon.com states:

“[S]traight forward, to the point, using household chemicals…this is the lab book for you. 
I teach high school chemistry and this is exactly what [I] was looking for. Labs included simple household chemicals that could be easily found. Nice format, easy to follow along procedures, and touches on every topic of our chemistry curriculum.”

You can buy this lab book for $23 at amazon.com or lulu.com. It will take 1-2 weeks to get to you -- Order Now.  It’s a great resource!
 
http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Budget-Marjorie-R-Heesemann/dp/0578129159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389410170&sr=1-1&keywords=chemistry+on+a+budget

http://www.lulu.com/shop/marjorie-r-heesemann/chemistry-on-a-budget/paperback/product-21217600.html
 
*Some of you have already purchased my lab book – be sure to check out Page 141 !
 
“A 2,000 foot-long floating pipe nicknamed Wilson is about to start its mission to collect all the “plastic in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Last month, the Ocean Cleanup foundation launched the world's first ocean cleanup system out of San Francisco to take on the notorious "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," a giant floating trash pile between San Francisco and Hawaii that is twice the size of Texas. It's the largest of five ocean trash piles on Earth.”
 
A 3:29 minutes video starts the article.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/15/tech/ocean-cleanup-project/index.html
 
“The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now twice the size of Texas and contains 1.8 trillion pieces of trash floating in the ocean. The Ocean Cleanup is an ambitious non-profit committed to removing it, and on Saturday it launches its first system out to sea from the San Francisco Bay.

Dutch entrepreneur Boyan Slat came up with the idea when he was 16 years old.

‘I went scuba diving in Greece and I actually saw more plastic bags than fish around me,’ said the Ocean Cleanup CEO and founder. ‘I wondered, why can't we just clean this up?’
He founded the organization in 2013 and the team has raised $35 million through crowdfunding campaigns and big donors like Marc Benioff and Peter Thiel.

System 001 is a 600 meter long float, with a 3 meter skirt and it's designed to corral plastic and debris. The collected garbage will then be removed by garbage truck-like ships.

The initial contraption will be used for testing and aims remove about 50 tons of the garbage, but the goal is to launch 60 systems to reduce the floating garbage patch by 50 percent in the next five years.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/07/ocean-cleanup-launches-to-take-on-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch.html
 
“Ocean currents concentrate plastic in five areas in the world: the subtropical gyres, also known as the world’s "ocean garbage patches". Once in these patches, the plastic will not go away by itself. The challenge of cleaning up the gyres is the plastic pollution spreads across millions of square kilometers and travels in all directions. Covering this area using vessels and nets would take thousands of years and cost billions of dollars to complete. How can we use these ocean currents to our advantage?”
https://www.theoceancleanup.com/
 
“In 2013, the Ocean Cleanup Foundation was established by an 18-year-old dutch inventor named Boyan Slat. According to the foundation’s site, it was begun with the goals of creating ways to clear the Pacific Ocean of Pollution and educating people on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The idea, Slat hypothesized, was to use the ocean’s currents to our advantage, allowing our passive drifting systems to clean up over half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in about 5 years’ time. Slat proposed that it would be nearly impossible to go after the garbage in the ocean with nets and vessels, and more than that, it would be costly and time-consuming.

With this in mind, he devised an Ocean Cleanup Passive System that would be comprised of a floater with a solid screen underneath that would concentrate debris and lead them to a collection system. Then, that system would be slowed to the point that it moved less quickly than the plastic, which would result in the plastic being trapped.

The technology behind the Ocean Cleanup Project is fairly simple, but compelling. With their solid screens underneath floating pipes, debris can be caught both on and under the surface. These systems will be drifting freely about the Pacific Ocean and will help to concentrate plastic towards a central point for collection by vessels, where it can be easily removed.”
https://businessconnectworld.com/2018/02/21/the-ocean-cleanup-project/
 
“The Ocean Cleanup plans to monitor the performance of the beta, called System 001, and have an improved fleet of 60 more units skimming the ocean for plastics in about a year a half. The ultimate goal of the project, founded by Dutch inventor Boyan Slat when he was 18, is to clean up 50% of the patch in five years, with a 90% reduction by 2040.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkart/2018/08/28/the-ocean-cleanup-is-starting-aims-to-cut-garbage-patch-by-90-by-2040/#40e5d1bb253e
 
“Many ocean experts have expressed optimism the project may go a long way to cleaning up the massive debris field, but some lingering concerns still remain.

Developers insist marine life will not get caught by the barrier and will be able to slip under the three metre deep skirt it uses to collect plastic.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/great-pacific-garbage-patch-ocean-cleanup-system-001-launch-amount-plastic-sea-pollution-a8528836.html
“…Sue Kinsey, of the Marine Conservation Society, warned creatures that float on the water’s surface, such as jellyfish, would be unable to escape.

‘The major problem is those creatures that passively float in the ocean that can’t actually move out of the way – once they’re in this array, they’re going to be trapped there unable to move,’ she told the BBC.”
 
‘[M]any in the marine biology and oceanographic world worry that it could keep the public from focusing on the real problem – stopping the seemingly endless flow of trash into the oceans in the first place. 

While Rolf Halden, a professor of environmental health engineering at Arizona State University, applauds the effort, he says cleaning while trash pours in doesn't make much sense.

"If you allow the doors to be open during a sandstorm while you’re vacuuming," he said, "you won’t get very far.’ “
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/09/08/ocean-cleanup-steam-out-sea-saturday-plastic-pollution-quest/1229694002/
 
It will be interesting to observe as this project develops.  Keep watching as further cleanup continues – the link is provided one more time for your convenience.
https://www.theoceancleanup.com/updates/
 
Past blog posts about Ocean issues include:
06/25/2015      Ocean Clean-Up
02/28/2016      Video: "Does the Ocean Think?"
03/19/2016      Microplastic Polluting Our Oceans
02/17/2017      The Ocean Clean-up Project Revisited
03/24/2017      Toxic Mercury Levels in Sea Life
12/01/2017      Ocean Wave Power
12/08/2017      Video: Oceans -- The Mystery of the
                                                            Missing Plastic
01/26/2018     Current Event -- Oil Drill Site Explosion
06/01/2018     Film on Ocean Water Interrupts CO2 Absorption
08/10/2018     Oil Spill Sponge
 
As a reminder, the celebration of Mole Day on Tuesday, 10/23/2018.  Some past blog posts include:
01/10/2014             2nd Entry (Mole Conversions and
                                       Moletown Map)
10/20/2014              Celebrating Mole Day
10/15/2015              Mole Mathematics​
10/15/2016              Mole Day is Coming!
 
For the 2018/2019 school year, buy a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget – it is a great resource!  You can examine the labs and decide what you want to use during the school year.

*This Blog contains several entries that would be helpful to your chemistry classroom.  Check out the Topic List to help you to find past Blog entries.
 
Also, Write To Me about your successes, challenges, or questions in the Chemistry Classroom.
 
Have a great weekend!


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    Marjorie R. Heesemann is a chemistry teacher with 15 years of experience who is now working to develop resources for the Chemistry classroom.

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