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This sealed ecosystem can be used as a phenomenon for material cycles in the environment. Students can generate questions about the sealed container and begin to generate ideas about what is happening and how this system has survived unopened for so long.

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Thriving since 1960, my garden in a bottle: Seedling sealed in its own ecosystem and watered just once in 53 years

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Gardener David Latimer, from Cranleigh, Surrey, first planted his bottle garden in 1960 and finally sealed it tightly shut 12 years later as an experiment - and it’s still going strong.

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This video shows a neutrophil chasing bacteria under a microscope. This video can be used as a phenomenon to engage students at the beginning of a unit on the immune response.

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Description: In this dramatic movie from the 1950's a neutrophil chases and engulfs a bacteria. White blood cells like this neutrophil are an important part of our immune system. They will migrate to a site of infection or inflammation through chemotaxis and eliminate invading microbes. This phenomenon will hopefully lead to a number of student questions like: How does the white blood cell follow the bacteria? What happens once the microbe is engulfed? etc.

Web Resources: Neutrophil Chasing Bacteria - About the Movie, Neutrophil - Wikipedia

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White Blood Cell Chases Bacteria - The Wonder of Science

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Description: In this dramatic movie from the 1950's a neutrophil chases and engulfs a bacteria. White blood cells like this neutrophil are an important part of our immune system. They will migrate to a site of infection or inflammation through chemotaxis and eliminate invading mi

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This lesson features an experiment where students will collect data on the impacts of melting ice on sea level.

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You might have heard that melting ice contributes to sea level rise. But it makes a difference whether that melting ice is on land or in the sea.

Make a prediction about what each type of ice will do to the level of water in a container. Then build a model to compare what you predicted to what you observe.

Watch the Tutorial

See below for materials and step-by-step instructions. For more video tutorials and activities like this one, visit Learning Space.

Watch en Español: Seleccione subtítulos en Español bajo el ícono de configuración.

In this episode of Learning Space, you'll do an experiment to see how the melting of land ice and sea ice contributes to global sea level rise. | Watch on YouTube

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Student Project: How Melting Ice Causes Sea Level Rise | NASA/JPL Edu

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Learn the difference between land ice and sea ice, then do an experiment to see how the melting of each contributes to global sea level rise.

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This phenomenon showing heliotropism can engage students and encourage them to ask questions and wonder. This can be used to begin a unit on photosynthesis.

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Description: This is an excellent phenomenon that can be used in many different units. According to researchers only young sunflowers will follow the Sun. These flowers are following a natural circadian rhythm to receive the most light for photosynthesis. However when they mature the flowers will mainly face east. The reason for this is fairly simple, bees like warm flowers, and the flowers facing the east are the warmest.

Web Resources: The Mystery Of Why Sunflowers Turn To Follow The Sun - Solved - NPR, Helianthus - Wikipedia

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Why Do Sunflowers Follow the Sun? - The Wonder of Science

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Description: This is an excellent phenomenon that can be used in many different units. According to researchers only young sunflowers will follow the Sun. These flowers are following a natural circadian rhythm to receive the most light for photosynthesis. However when they mature the flow

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This sealed ecosphere can be used as a phenomenon to introduce material cycles in an ecosystem.

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Description: The Ecosphere in this video has been sealed in a glass container for 12 years. No air or food was able to enter or leave the Ecosphere during this entire time yet the shrimp are all still alive. This phenomenon can be used in the elementary science classroom to introduce plant and animal needs. It can be used in middle and high school to address matter cycling and energy flow.
Web Resources: Ecosphere (aquarium) on Wikipedia, Ecospheres

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12 Years in a Sealed Ecosphere - The Wonder of Science

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Description: The Ecosphere in this video has been sealed in a glass container for 12 years. No air or food was able to enter or leave the Ecosphere during this entire time yet the shrimp are all still alive.

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This documentary focuses on bacterial resistance and the decreasing effectiveness of antibiotics on "super bugs."

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Watch full-length episodes of PBS documentary series FRONTLINE for free. Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria - FRONTLINE investigates the rise of deadly drug-resistant bacteria.

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This news clip can be used as a phenomenon to introduce invasive species and human impact on the environment. It illustrates the devastating effects that invasive species can have.

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INVASION: Spotted lanternfly sightings up 500% compared to last year

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This resource includes data sets on human impacts to the environment, including sea level rise, ocean plastics, extreme weather, and climate change.

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Marine debris is now present everywhere on Earth and is transported by ocean currents, accumulating in areas called garbage patches. The show describes the problems associated with marine debris and the impacts it has on marine life. NOAA established a Marine Debris Program in 2005, supporting hundreds of projects to address the issue of marine debris across the United States.

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This resource includes photos and videos of marine debris. These can be used as phenomenon for lessons on human impact on the environment.

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a collection of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean. Marine debris is litter that ends up in oceans, seas, and other large bodies of water.

The area in the center of a gyre tends to be very calm and stable. The circular motion of the gyre draws debris into this stable center, where it becomes trapped. A plastic water bottle discarded off the coast of California, for instance, takes the California Current south toward Mexico. There, it may catch the North Equatorial Current, which crosses the vast Pacific. Near the coast of Japan, the bottle may travel north on the powerful Kuroshiro Current. Finally, the bottle travels eastward on the North Pacific Current. The gently rolling vortexes of the Eastern and Western Garbage Patches gradually draw in the bottle.

The amount of debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch accumulates because much of it is not biodegradable. Many plastics, for instance, do not wear down; they simply break into tinier and tinier pieces.

For many people, the idea of a "garbage patch" conjures up images of an island of trash floating on the ocean. In reality, these patches are almost entirely made up of tiny bits of plastic, called microplastics. Microplastics can't always be seen by the naked eye. Even satellite imagery doesn't show a giant patch of garbage. The microplastics of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can simply make the water look like a cloudy soup. This soup is intermixed with larger items, such as fishing gear and shoes.

The seafloor beneath the Great Pacific Garbage Patch may also be an underwater trash heap. Oceanographers and ecologists recently discovered that about 70 percent of marine debris actually sinks to the bottom of the ocean.
Marine Debris
80 percent of plastic in the ocean is estimated to come from land-based sources, with the remaining 20 percent coming from boats and other marine sources. These percentages vary by region, however. A 2018 study found that synthetic fishing nets made up nearly half the mass of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, due largely to ocean current dynamics and increased fishing activity in the Pacific Ocean.

While many different types of trash enter the ocean, plastics make up the majority of marine debris for two reasons. First, plastic's durability, low cost, and malleability mean that it's being used in more and more consumer and industrial products. Second, plastic goods do not biodegrade but instead, break down into smaller pieces.

In the ocean, the sun breaks down these plastics into tinier and tinier pieces, a process known as photodegradation. Most of this debris comes from plastic bags, bottle caps, plastic water bottles, and Styrofoam cups.

Marine debris can be very harmful to marine life in the gyre. For instance, loggerhead sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellies, their favorite food. Albatrosses mistake plastic resin pellets for fish eggs and feed them to chicks, which die of starvation or ruptured organs.

Seals and other marine mammals are especially at risk. They can get entangled in abandoned plastic fishing nets, which are being discarded largely due to inclement weather and illegal fishing. Seals and other mammals often drown in these forgotten nets-a phenomenon known as "ghost fishing."

Marine debris can also disturb marine food webs in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. As microplastics and other trash collect on or near the surface of the ocean, they block sunlight from reaching plankton and algae below. Algae and plankton are the most common autotrophs, or producers, in the marine food web. Autotrophs are organisms that can produce their own nutrients from carbon and sunlight.

If algae and plankton communities are threatened, the entire food web may change. Animals that feed on algae and plankton, such as fish and turtles, will have less food. If populations of those animals decrease, there will be less food for apex predators such as tuna, sharks, and whales. Eventually, seafood becomes less available and more expensive for people.

These dangers are compounded by the fact that plastics both leach out and absorb harmful pollutants. As plastics break down through photodegradation, they leach out colorants and chemicals, such as bisphenol A (BPA), that have been linked to environmental and health problems. Conversely, plastics can also absorb pollutants, such as PCBs, from the seawater. These chemicals can then enter the food chain when consumed by marine life.
Patching Up the Patch
Cleaning up marine debris is not as easy as it sounds. Many microplastics are the same size as small sea animals, so nets designed to scoop up trash would catch these creatures as well. Even if we could design nets that would just catch garbage, the size of the oceans makes this job far too time-consuming to consider. The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Debris Program has estimated that it would take 67 ships one year to clean up less than one percent of the North Pacific Ocean.

Many expeditions have traveled through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Charles Moore, who discovered the patch in 1997, continues to raise awareness through his own environmental organization, the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. During a 2014 expedition, Moore and his team used aerial drones, to assess from above the extent of the trash below. The drones determined that there is 100 times more plastic by weight than previously measured. The team also discovered more permanent plastic features, or islands, some over 15 meters (50 feet) in length.

All the floating plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch inspired National Geographic Emerging Explorer David de Rothschild and his team at Adventure Ecology to create a large catamaran made of plastic bottles: the . The sturdiness of the Plastiki displayed the strength and durability of plastics, the creative ways that they can be repurposed, and the threat they pose to the environment when they don't decompose. In 2010, the crew successfully navigated the Plastiki from San Francisco, California, to Sydney, Australia.

Scientists and explorers agree that limiting or eliminating our use of disposable plastics and increasing our use of biodegradable resources will be the best way to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Organizations such as the Plastic Pollution Coalition and the Plastic Oceans Foundation are using social media and direct action campaigns to support individuals, manufacturers, and businesses in their transition from toxic, disposable plastics to biodegradable or reusable materials.

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a collection of marine debris in the North Pacific. Marine debris is litter that ends up in the ocean, seas, and other large bodies of water.

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This article explains what viruses are and how they can impact populations.

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Viruses are tiny infectious agents that rely on living cells to multiply. They may use an animal, plant, or bacteria host to survive and reproduce. As such, there is some debate as to whether or not viruses should be considered living organisms. A virus that is outside of a host cell is known as a virion.

Not only are viruses microscopic, they are smaller than many other microbes, such as bacteria. Most viruses are only 20-400 nanometers in diameter, whereas human egg cells, for example, are about 120 micrometers in diameter, and the E. coli bacteria has a diameter of around 1 micrometer. Viruses are so small that they are best viewed using an electron microscope, which is how they were first visualized in the 1940s.

Viruses generally come in two forms: rods or spheres. However, bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) have a unique shape, with a geometric head and filamentous tail fibers. No matter the shape, all viruses consist of genetic material (DNA or RNA) and have an outer protein shell, known as a capsid.

There are two processes used by viruses to replicate: the lytic cycle and lysogenic cycle. Some viruses reproduce using both methods, while others only use the lytic cycle. In the lytic cycle, the virus attaches to the host cell and injects its DNA. Using the host's cellular metabolism, the viral DNA begins to replicate and form proteins. Then fully formed viruses assemble. These viruses break, or lyse, the cell and spread to other cells to continue the cycle.

Like the lytic cycle, in the lysogenic cycle the virus attaches to the host cell and injects its DNA. From there, the viral DNA gets incorporated into the host's DNA and the host's cells. Each time the host's cells go through replication, the virus's DNA gets replicated as well, spreading its genetic information throughout the host without having to lyse the infected cells.

In humans, viruses can cause many diseases. For example, the flu is caused by the influenza virus. Typically, viruses cause an immune response in the host, and this kills the virus. However, some viruses are not successfully treated by the immune system, such as human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. This leads to a more chronic infection that is difficult or impossible to cure; often only the symptoms can be treated.

Unlike bacterial infections, antibiotics are ineffective at treating viral infections. Viral infections are best prevented by vaccines, though antiviral drugs can treat some viral infections. Most antiviral drugs work by interfering with viral replication. Some of these drugs stop DNA synthesis, preventing the virus from replicating

Although viruses can have devastating health consequences, they also have important technological applications. Viruses are particularly vital to gene therapy. Because some viruses incorporate their DNA into host DNA, they can be genetically modified to carry genes that would benefit the host. Some viruses can even be engineered to reproduce in cancer cells and trigger the immune system to kill those harmful cells. Although this is still an emerging field of research, it gives viruses the potential to one day do more good than harm.

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Viruses are tiny infectious agents that invade host cells and cause disease. Although they are harmful, viruses also have interesting technological potential.

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This app and the data collected can be used to track marine debris. The data can be used for student analysis of debris type and location.

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8 million metric tons...

That's how much plastic is estimated to enter the ocean every year. What are we doing to change that?
‍
Debris Tracker is designed to help citizen scientists like you make a difference by contributing data on plastic pollution in your community. We've been tracking litter since before smartphones existed, and we're still driven by uniting technology and citizen science to fight plastic pollution. Every day, dedicated educational, non-profit, and scientific organizations and passionate citizen scientists from all around the world record data on inland and marine debris with our easy-to-use app, contributing to our open data platform and scientific research.

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8 million metric tons... That's how much plastic is estimated to enter the ocean every year. What are we doing to change that? ‍Debris Tracker is designed to help citizen scientists like you make a difference by contributing data on plastic pollution in your community.