Contents of educational material, which consists of a series of PowerPoint presentations, available in PDF file format:   CONTENTS – THE STATE OF OUR OCEANS – 150512

 

THE STATE OF OUR OCEANS

PowerPoint Presentations

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION – WHY OUR OCEANS ARE SO IMPORTANT  (13 slides)

• What the oceans provide: food, jobs, transportation, water, recreation, wildlife, weather and climate control, oxygen
• Three key human-induced factors are making the oceans sick: overfishing, climate change, and marine pollution

 

 

MARINE POLLUTION – THE IMPACTS OF PLASTIC DEBRIS  (93 slides)

• ABOUT PLASTIC AND PLASTIC IN THE OCEANS
  • What is plastic?
  • What is plastic so bad for our environment
  • How much plastic gets into our oceans and how does it get there?
    • From land sources
    • From ocean sources
  • What happens to plastics in the oceans?
    • Photodegradation and fragmentation
    • Floating, sinking, and suspended plastic
    • Ocean gyres, the North Pacific and the North Atlantic gyres
• The 4 major problems with plastics in the oceans:

1. LEACHING AND ABSORPTION  

• • Toxic chemicals that are leached and absorbed by plastic
  • Bioaccumulation and biomagnification
  • How the toxic chemicals from leaching and absorption of plastic are affecting both marine animals and humans

     How plastics are hurting, poisoning, and killing marine animals:

2. ENTANGLEMENT

• • Which debris causes the most entanglement
  • Results of entanglement
  • Victims of entanglement:
    • Seabirds
    • Sea turtles
    • Seals and sea lions
    • Cetacean species (Whales, dolphins, porpoises)

3. INGESTION

• • Why marine animals ingest plastic
  • Results of ingestion of plastic by marine animals
  • Which marine animals ingest plastic and how they are affected?:
    • Seabirds
    • Sea turtles
    • Marine mammals
    • Fish
    • Small filter feeders and plankton

4. SPREAD OF INVASIVE ALIEN SPECIES

• The current status of plastic disposal and some of the things that we can do

 

 

MARINE POLLUTION – TOXIC WASTE AND NOISE POLLUTION  (71 slides)

• TOXIC WASTE
  • Types of marine pollution
  • Sources of marine pollution
    • Land-based
    • Ocean-based
  • The results of marine pollution from toxic waste:
    • Bioaccumulation and biomagnification
    • The effects of marine pollution on marine animals
      • Marine mammals
      • Sea turtles
      • Marine birds
    • The effects of marine pollution on humans
    • Results of oil spills
    • Eutrophication
    • Dead zones

 

• NOISE POLLUTION
  • Underwater sound and marine animals
  • Three major sources of man-made ocean noise:
    • Surface ocean traffic
    • Military sonar
    • Seismic air guns
  • Other sources of marine noise pollution
  • Results of exposure to man-made ocean noise
  • Noise pollution is causing many marine animals to beach themselves

 

 

OVERFISHING  (50 slides)

• Unsustainable fishing:
  • Bycatch
  • Types of unsustainable fishing practices:
    • Bottom trawling
    • Longlining
    • Gillnetting
    • Purse seining
    • Drift netting
    • Small-scale fisheries bycatch
    • Factory Ships
    • Dynamite and Cyanide fishing (coral reefs)
    • Shark Finning
  • Results of overfishing
  • Reducing overfishing

 

CLIMATE CHANGE – IMPACTS ON OUR OCEANS AND LAND  (33 slides)

• • Global warming and climate change
  • Major man-made sources of global greenhouse gas emissions
  • Global emissions, temperature rise, and species extinction
• OUR OCEANS AND GLOBAL WARMING
  • Ocean acidification and ocean warming
    • How they are affecting life in the oceans
• OTHER IMPACTS OF GLOBAL WARMING
  • Melting sea ice
  • Weather patterns and severe weather events
  • Melting glaciers – water and food security
  • Rising sea levels
  • Higher levels of precipitation
  • Desertification
  • Climate change is already threatening many animals
  • Future warming
• Ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions