Oceans on Fire

The L.A. Times has run a five part series on our nations "Altered Oceans." These five parts explain:

• Crucial habitats are falling victim to the changing chemistry of oceans.
• Toxic algae and bacteria are poisoning marine mammals and other sea life.
• Red tides multiply and worsen, and the winds carry their toxins ashore.
• Seaborne plastic debris pose a lethal hazard to wildlife.
• Seawater is turning acidic, threatening fish, coral and other marine life.

Several interesting op-ed pieces have also been written about this series. One entitled, "How You Can Turn the Tide," and one titled, "Healthcare for the Oceans."

After reading this material, I'm especially thinking about the interconnectedness of Earth's ecosystem. One of the op-ed pieces states,

What you eat and how it is grown make a difference. Fertilizers used on crops in the Midwest wash into the Mississippi River, where they eventually reach the Gulf of Mexico and contribute to algae blooms and oxygendepleted "dead zones." Pesticides also contaminate marine environments. Animal wastes from huge feedlots can harm sea grasses, coral reefs and other coastal ecosystems. Buying locally grown organic food and reducing the amount of meat you eat can have an effect on all these problems.

As teachers we can certainly point this interconnectedness out to our students. We might give them a map of Earth and ask them to draw a path from Green Bay, Wisconsin to Long Beach California, via water. Who doesn't like a great maze? Earth's water represents a great maze. Great maps can be found on Google Earth.

From a literary perspective, we might ask our students to pretend that they are a piece of pollution that has been thrown into the Missippi River. Ask our students to write a travel diary, explaining where this piece of pollution might move, what it might interact with and the damage that it could inflict on the ecosystem. Students could write this diary from a first person perspective.

This L.A. Times series, has so many possible teaching angles. I've obviously just chosen to write about one of them.