We are proud to announce the release of the Marine Debris Monitoring Toolkit for Educators, created through a collaborative effort between the NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP) and the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. This Toolkit translates the MDP’s Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project, a robust citizen science initiative, for classroom use. 

The Marine Debris Monitoring Toolkit for Educators is available for free download on the NOAA Marine Debris Program website.

Interested in staying up to date on marine debris resources to incorporate into your classroom? Sign up for the NOAA Marine Debris Program’s new Educator Newsletter on our homepage.

It’s that time of year again—students and teachers are headed back to school. Whether you’ve been back in class for a few weeks or are just gearing up for the start of school, you’re likely feeling those end-of-summer blues. Thankfully, the NOAA Marine Debris Program has lots of resources for classroom use that can help make school days interactive and fun while encouraging students to be part of the solution to marine debris!

The NOAA Marine Debris Program is proud to announce that our 2018 Marine Debris Calendar is available for download!

This year’s calendar features artwork from the 2017 “Keep the Sea Free of Debris” art contest winners. Our annual art contest aims to get kids thinking about how they can keep debris out of the ocean and the calendar serves as a daily reminder that we can all do our part to help! Keep your eye on our website for information on this year’s contest, which starts October 16^th.

By: Sarah Latshaw, Southeast Regional Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program

While we may not have flying monkeys and green-faced witches to contend with here in the Southeast, we do face possible hazards like hurricanes, tornados, and severe thunderstorms. With these threats, there also comes the potential for a different kind of trouble--large amounts of storm-generated marine debris. In fact, almost a year after hurricane Matthew, many states are still dealing with the remnant debris stirred up by those storms, much of it in the form of abandoned and derelict vessels.

Meet Sarah Latshaw, the Southeast Regional Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program, based in beautiful Charleston, SC. Reach out to Sarah at sarah.latshaw@noaa.gov!

The Southeast United States is a great place to enjoy some unique outdoor areas. The NOAA Marine Debris Program’s Southeast region spans the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to which many people travel to experience the beautiful sand beaches and marshlands. Unfortunately, this area is also visited by marine debris. Thankfully, there are several efforts underway to keep our Southeast region clean and address the marine debris that plagues this area. Check out some of the projects that are working to remove and prevent debris in the Southeast.

Marine debris is one of the most widespread pollution problems facing our ocean and waterways today. This issue of solid, man-made materials in the ocean or Great Lakes is a global one that leaves no part of the world untouched by debris and its impacts. These negative effects impact people on a daily basis, from economic losses to potential health hazards, but can impact marine animals most severely. Animals are impacted by marine debris in a variety of ways, check them out here and what we can do to help.

If you live away from the coast and are far from the nearest beach, you’ve probably thought “marine debris sounds bad, but it doesn’t have anything to do with me— I don’t contribute to it.” Well think again! Even if you don’t live in close proximity to the ocean or Great Lakes, your actions can still have an impact on marine debris. How? To put it simply, it all comes down to one word: watersheds. So what exactly is a watershed?