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Publications
This activity is a role playing game that will help students understand the impact of litter and pollutants on our sea birds and marine animals. Common items such as plastic bags, bottle tops and cigarette butts, can be mistaken by coastal birds and animals for fish, jellyfish or seaweed. For many of these animals this mistake can be fatal. These creatures can also become entangled in plastics and other litter when feeding, resting or just moving around their coastal environment.
This activity requires students to work in pairs, one is the narrator and one is the coastal or marine animal. The role playing helps the students identify with the animal and allows them to be creative in developing a narrative and actions. In the case of younger groups, the teacher may wish to narrate for the class.
This activity can be conducted at the beach, or simply in the classroom.
If it is possible to visit the beach, the students should walk along the beach looking at the litter and picking it up for disposal, if appropriate facilities exist. Litter samples from the beach could be collected for use in the role plays.
If it is not possible to visit the beach, examples of the litter found along beaches can be collected from the playground or be brought into the classroom and used in the role plays. You might find it fun to play some 'coastal sounds' audio while the activity is taking place.
To be read out aloud by the 'narrator', while the 'animal' - in this case a Diving Petrel - acts out the story.
You are a sea bird soaring high in the sky above a sparkling ocean way below. The sun is out and the breeze is cool fresh and salty. Gusts of wind toss you around. Sometimes you float with the wind and let it carry you towards the shore and sometimes to push back against it.
You swoop downwards and zoom in towards the shore. Looking way down below, you can see the waves breaking on the sandy beach. You have been playing in the wind for ages and it has been hours since you last had something to eat.
You skim along only metres above the water behind the breaking waves looking for a school of fish that will make a nice lunch. You dart back and forth looking for a glimmer of silver below the surface. Just the thought of that juicy fish makes you even hungrier.
There doesn't seem to be any fish about. You turn and head for the shore. Perhaps you'll just have to have a meal of boring sand hoppers instead.
Just as you begin to head for the shore, a glint of silver on the surface of the ocean below catches your eye. You swoop down towards the ocean. All you can think about is munching on that juicy fish. You hit the surface of the water right on target but it is not a fish that you have caught……you resurface, not with the big juicy fish that you had been daydreaming about, but a shiny piece of plastic caught tightly around your neck. It is the ring from around the top of a bottle. You twist and turn to try and break free from the plastic but the more you twist the tighter it becomes around your throat.
You are scared. You continue to flutter and flap your wings but nothing seems to help. You try and try for hours and hours. As night falls you collapse to the ground exhausted and hungry, unable to search for food and unable to defend yourself against foxes and cats that come out to hunt for birds at night.
What could we do to stop these problems occurring?
Some ways to address litter problems that are killing our sea creatures:
Some litter also arrives on the beach via drains that lead to the sea. In this case someone has dropped the rubbish somewhere else in the town and it has been washed down the drains to the beach.
Have a look at some coastal litter survey results to see what has been collected
One was done in the Victorian coastal location of St Kilda:
Another is the annual beach litter survey at Anxious Bay (Elliston, South Australia) which is Australia's longest running survey of ocean litter.
The Clean Up Australia web site contains a lot of information about litter and pollution in all environments, including the beach. Clean Up Australia Day volunteers remove more rubbish from beaches than almost anywhere else.
Some more questions to think about …
1. Role play concept adapted from 'Coastal Critters in Crisis' by Coast Action, Victoria.
2. Discussion questions adapted from St Kilda EarthCare and Gould League of Victoria's activity, 'An analysis of litter data from St Kilda EarthCare'.
