Raising environmental awareness – Plastic waste

Situation

Your school is planning an environmental project day on Earth Day (April, 22nd). Each class is going to prepare a workshop on a special topic. Your class is supposed to deal with “plastic pollution“.

Getting informed

First you are going to listen to a BBC programme on plastic waste.

Listening comprehension: Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Tasks:

You are going to listen to a BBC programme on plastic waste. While listening try to answer the questions.

Audio: BBC – 6 minutes English

1. What is the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch“?

2 How big is the garbage patch presumably?

3. What is the bad consequence of the plastic pollution in the seas?

4. What examples of litter found in birds‘ stomachs does Jan van Franeker mention?

5. According to Kate, what is part of the problem?

6. What does that mean?

7. Who is Richard Thompson?

8. According to Mr Thompson, what percentage of plastic products are used as packaging materials?

9. Which other word for “throw away“ is used in the programme?

10. What do scientists recommend to ease the problem?

11. Why is Dan lucky to live in London?

12. How many pieces of plastic are there in each square kilometre of the world’s oceans?

Solutions

Solution 1

area of the Pacific Ocean where rubbish has collected / a big floating soup of plastic garbage in the Pacific Ocean

Solution 2

600,000 square miles / twice the size of France

Solution 3

it kills over a million sea birds and 100,000 mammals and turtles

Solution 4

pieces of bottles or toys, parts from fishing nets, from ropes

Solution 6

plastic does not decompose or decay organically

Lösung 11

because of its recycling programme – paper, plastic and glass are collected every week

Lösung 12

46,000 pieces

You may also want to read the transcript: Transcript: BBC – 6 minutes English

Video rating

Tasks:

You are going to watch four videos dealing with plastic pollution.

While watching make some notes:

1. What is the video about?

2. What is special about the video?

3. How would you characterize the video?

Here is a list of adjectives you can choose from:

disgusting, easy to understand, educational, emotional, entertaining, funny, gorgeous, incomprehensible, informative, interesting, ironic, manipulating, mocking, moving, pathetic, persuasive, sad, scaring, shocking, touching, witty

4. Which video would you choose for your presentation to arouse awareness? Why?

Four videos on plastic waste:

1. Meet the nurdles