- We're gonna use the app named Marine Debris Tracker,
and we're going to use it to document the litter
and trash that we find along the way in Chicago.
(bright music)
What material is this?
- Paper. - Paper.
- Where are you noticing that we're finding all this trash?
- In bushes. - Yeah.
- Where people wouldn't normally be walking.
So they throw it where they think
that no one's gonna be there.
- [Girl] Is that poo?
- [Girl] Oh, my God, no, it's like a charger.
- [Girl] 43 pieces of trash.
- 43 already?
- This is microplastic.
- Wow, microplastics.
(bright music)
We found 62 items, and we haven't left our park.
We're gonna head back inside and analyze the data we found.
- Yay! - Okay.
- My name is Pat Keiner.
I'm the director of innovation
at GEMS World-Academy Chicago.
(bright music)
The director of innovation
is kinda like the director of what if.
I help make my students' and teachers' ideas come to life.
Every student in our building has access to an iPad,
and students grade four through 11
also have access to a MacBook.
If we press on the arrow in the corner on the app,
it shows you our map.
- [Girl] It shows where we found the trash.
- Right, this is the litter we found only in our park,
but it's so important that we pick it up
because what else is around the park?
- [Girl] Water?
- Water.
What if we didn't pick up this debris?
- It can get into our water source.
- Whenever we talked to students about complex ideas,
I always start the conversation with Google Earth first.
And the reason I ground them in earth first
is because we need to understand our relationship to place.
It's easy to get lost in abstract ideas,
but maps make things personal.
Today, we're really gonna focus on plastics
and thinking deeply about how plastics make their way
around the world and the impacts that they have
on people, animals, and the environment.
In this infographic, it shows how this is the trash
and how it moves from source, the land where we are, to sea.
And we're gonna zoom down to this uninhabited island
and see what's there.
- Pollution is getting in food and water sources.
Some animals, they just opened my mouth
and let food come in.
So if we just let trash go around,
they will eat the trash and eventually die out.
- And what do we notice on the beach?
- There's microplastics.
- How many other people think that?
(upbeat music)
- [Girl] What's this?
It's a very shiny piece.
- [Pat] What do you think is causing the sand
to stick to it?
- The chemicals.
- We couldn't take them to the beach.
We wanted to bring the beach to them
to understand how hard it is
to eliminate microplastics from sand.
- This exercise makes me think
that we should make inventions
that can help us find microplastic
and that will help us pick up the trash.
(upbeat music)
- So exciting to see them explore
and to see them really pursue something
that matters to them.
It's not about creating something for a teacher.
It's creating something that they're proud of for themselves
in the most creative, interesting way that they want.
- This is our prototype.
We're not done with it.
This robot is supposed to collect microplastics.
- In the ocean.
- Basically, we have a grabber and.
- The grabber would pick up plastic,
and then the grabber would put it in this compartment.
- So we coded on our computer to make the arm move.
- Plastics were one of the main causes
of extinction, endangerment, and bad water in general.
So we tried to find a solution
and make it a little bit more preventable.
- What we heard from the students in doing the exercise
was they felt like real scientists.
And part of doing any of this work
with students is empowering them to feel
like they have the opportunity to make change,
that they are in the position to move forward,
that it's not an abstract problem that they can't conquer.
Technology allows us a space
to take ownership over those issues.
Through these activities and through guiding them
with data collection, they start to care,
and they start to see themselves as agents of change.
- I think we should care about our planet
because it's the only place we can live.
- The planet will change depending on how we will change.
So if we take action now, we can have a happier future.
(upbeat music)