·        Rivers, oceans, lakes are the life blood of our planet.

·        Water covers 70% of the planet’s surface.

·        Biggest garbage dump is in Pacific Ocean (this garbage swirl stretches from the coast of California to Japan).  In some places it is 90 feet deep!

·        There are garbage patches in EVERY ocean.

·        90% of the 3.5 million tons of floating trash is plastic.

·        In some places in the ocean, there is 6 times more plastic than plankton (food that many fish depend on).

·        80% of the ocean litter comes from land (dumped into waterways or blown into rivers, lakes and streams from states as far as Iowa).

·        Ecological disaster (millions of seabirds and mammals have died)

·        Dead albatross was cut open and its stomach was filled with plastics, cigarette lighter, etc. instead of fish!

·        Turtle caught in plastic ring as a baby, and somehow survived as it grew into adulthood!

·        Animals get caught in nets, plastic bags, or they swallow plastic because they mistaken it for food, etc.

·        Americans use 100 billion plastic bags per year…that’s about 300 per person in America per year (only 1% of these bags get recycled, and the rest ends up in landfills and oceans).

·        World has used over 152 billion plastic bags as of Earth Day this year (April 22, 2009) and it’s growing every second.

·        Beluga whales are getting breast cancer for the first time from all the chemicals in the plastics they swallow (dioxins, DDT, flame retardants, etc.)  Whales are like the “canaries of the coal mine”.  They are an indicator of the state of our oceans.

·        Chemical cleaners, pesticides, fertilizer, etc. that we use in and around our homes run down our drains and into our waterways to the rivers, streams, lakes and oceans.

·        Cruise ships and tens of thousands of tankers and other shipping industry vessels dump waste and garbage right into the ocean.

EDPD 581 Action Plan Assignment

Throughout the course we would like to you to be thinking of an action plan for implementing your learning.  The action plan should be practical for your teaching situation and hopefully become part of your day to day teaching practice. Your wiki can be part of your action plan. Please feel free to be creative in how you prepare your action plan (you might want to consider using some of the multimedia tools you have learned about in the course).  You will be expected to post the action plan on the wiki and share your action plan with others (you might even want to share it with your colleagues and administrators). The action plan might be something you want to share during your presentation on the final day.

 Your plan should consider incorporating the following (but it also needs to work for you):

You have learned many new things this week.  How will you use what you have learned to continue with your own personal/professional growth? 

   When back on the job what will you incorporate into your day to make learning    accessible and engaging to all?

  What do you hope to share with your school (staff/ parents/colleagues…)?

    How might what you have learned impact your district? What might you do to share what you learned beyond your own classroom?

   Many tools (programs, add-ons, websites) were discussed this week.  Which tools have potential to make a BIG difference in your world?  Why?

What is was the biggest ‘Aha’ moment for you?

You will post a copy of your action plan on the Wiki and a copy will be submitted to the instructors.  Please contact one of the instructors if you have difficulty.