WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.030 --> 00:00:04.200 STUDENTS: "Falcons on three! One, two three, Falcons! Alright lets go!" 00:00:04.200 --> 00:00:08.500 These students from Scotts Valley High School near Santa Cruz California 00:00:08.500 --> 00:00:13.139 are fired up. Over the next few hours they'll be scouring the beach. 00:00:13.139 --> 00:00:17.100 Searching, not for treasure, but for trash. 00:00:17.100 --> 00:00:21.700 STUDENTS: "We got a spoon! A cigarette butt. A bottle cap." 00:00:21.700 --> 00:00:23.850 They are painstakingly identifying 00:00:23.850 --> 00:00:30.599 each item and keeping count. Their class will track trash over time. It's all a 00:00:30.599 --> 00:00:35.489 part of a program that helps scientists drive new plans to reduce marine debris. 00:00:35.489 --> 00:00:42.000 Through understanding what ocean trash ends up where. Did you know that 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:48.690 8 million metric tons of plastic alone enters our ocean every year? 00:00:48.690 --> 00:00:57.090 That's equivalent to over 2.5 million elephants or more than 27 thousand 747 Jets. 00:00:57.090 --> 00:01:04.650 And yes, you heard it right that's every year! Marine debris, or trash, in our ocean and 00:01:04.650 --> 00:01:09.799 great lakes can cause a lot of problems for the health of animals and people. 00:01:09.799 --> 00:01:13.920 Luckily there are many people out there that are doing something about it. 00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:21.700 They're spreading the word and cleaning up the trash. But if we want to figure out the best way 00:01:21.700 --> 00:01:27.500 to solve this problem we need to learn more about it. We can do that through monitoring. 00:01:27.500 --> 00:01:33.400 STUDENTS: "Is that larger than two parts per centimeters? It is not so we do not have to categorize it." 00:01:33.400 --> 00:01:38.400 STUDENTS: "Can we just keep on walking? A straw! Delicious." 00:01:38.900 --> 00:01:41.790 Marine debris monitoring means that we are keeping an 00:01:41.790 --> 00:01:46.870 eye on debris in a certain location and tracking changes over time. 00:01:46.870 --> 00:01:54.500 STUDENTS: "We have found a lot of plastic fragments, a lot of food wrappers, plastic bottles, " 00:01:54.500 --> 00:01:57.300 STUDENTS: "just kind of food-related trash." 00:01:57.300 --> 00:02:00.700 By recording the amount and types of marine debris we can 00:02:00.700 --> 00:02:05.440 learn valuable information like: what kind of trash is the biggest problem? 00:02:05.440 --> 00:02:13.200 What locations have the most debris? And during what time of year more debris can be found? 00:02:16.200 --> 00:02:21.520 People all over the country and the world are working together to 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:23.494 monitor the marine debris they find on their shore. 00:02:23.494 --> 00:02:28.464 STUDENT: "Obviously this isn't the only beach that has accumulated plastic and by" 00:02:28.464 --> 00:02:34.519 STUDENT: "taking the census of all the trash around here can basically give anyone even a rough estimate" 00:02:34.519 --> 00:02:40.600 STUDENT: "of just how much there is on just any beach in general." 00:02:40.600 --> 00:02:43.690 This big picture can give us ideas for solutions 00:02:43.690 --> 00:02:49.550 and tell us if the prevention programs we already have are working. 00:02:49.550 --> 00:02:54.920 Now students like you can make a real difference using resources like the 00:02:54.920 --> 00:02:59.500 marine debris tracker app or the marine debris monitoring toolkit for educators. 00:02:59.500 --> 00:03:05.600 With these powerful tools students can now collect local data and share that 00:03:05.600 --> 00:03:09.470 information with their community and neighbors so they can come up with 00:03:09.470 --> 00:03:15.979 solutions to reduce trash on their shores.