Background
This lesson is part of the Plastic Pollution and You curriculum developed by the educators from New York Sea Grant.
In this lesson, students will learn about the fundamentals of water treatment systems and the challenges that microplastic particles present to both waste and drinking water systems.
By testing filters of different sizes with plastic particles of different shapes and sizes, the students will observe how the sizes of materials influence each other.
Objectives
Students will:
- analyze the wastewater treatment process.
- simulate the wastewater treatment process.
- draw conclusions about the relationship between particle size and filtration mesh size.
Lesson Alignment
This lesson is part of the Plastic Pollution and You curriculum and is aligned to the following standards document:
New York State P-12 Science Learning Standards & Next
Generation Science Standards | LINK
SCI: 5-ESS3-1, MS-ESS3-3, HS-ESS3-4, 3-5-ETS1-1, MS-ETS1-3, HS-ETS1-3
Materials
Access printed copies or electronic versions of lesson materials below.
- Solid Items of Difference Sizes
- Items less than 1 cm (sand, coffee grounds, sprinkles, rice, couscous, etc.)
- Nurdles and other small fragments from larger plastic items (ie: plastic bottle, caps, etc.) found during cleanups or personal use (can cut these items into smaller pieces as needed)
- Small items: plastic craft beads, dry beans, gravel, etc.
- Different gauge filters
- Various nets or mesh fabric
- Kitchen strainers
- Coffee filter
- Water, Pitchers, Buckets
Here’s Where New York City’s Sewage Really Goes1
Video Resource
Prediction Chart
One per student
Results Chart
One per student
Reflection questions sheet
One per student
The Nurdle Patrol
NOAA Ocean Podcast Episode 31
Nurdle Patrol
Web Resource
Plastic Pollution and You
Full Curricula
1 Disclaimer: The linked YouTube video below may contain advertisements that can interrupt viewing. These ads are typically placed by content creators or YouTube and may vary in length and frequency.
Time Required
This lesson may require 1-2 class periods to complete.
Activity Set-Up
While this lesson focuses on plastic pollution, the items used in this demonstration do not necessarily have to be plastic – they can represent how plastic pieces of different sizes and shapes would function. The list of materials include some examples of what can be used but feel free to incorporate a wide variety of materials.
Nurdles are small pre-production plastic pellets that are often lost during the plastic production process. To learn more about nurdles, check out the NOAA Ocean Podcast Episode: The Nurdle Patrol or visit the Nurdle Patrol’s website both listed in the materials.
Lesson
- Instruct students to watch the video Here’s Where New York City’s Sewage Really Goes, linked in the materials above.
- Discuss as a class the step in the wastewater treatment process that removes large items from wastewater.
- Show students the different items and filters that will be used in the demonstrations.
- Have students make observations about the different sizes and shapes of the items and the different types of filters.
- Ask each student to write down their predictions about which items will pass through which filters on the Plastic Pollution in Our Water Prediction Chart.
- Test out different types of filters to capture different sizes of plastic.
- Set up different filters over buckets.
- Fill pitchers with water and different size plastic items.
- Pour the water filled with plastic items over each filter and have students observe what happens.
- Have each student record which items move through each filter on the Plastic Pollution in Our Water Results Chart.
- As a class or individually, have students complete or discuss reflection questions.
This lesson is part of a larger curriculum, Plastic Pollution and You.
