Pacific Ocean

By Gigi V, Kaleb, and Sebastian

Biome: Marine, hydrosphere

Abiotic: Water, Sunlight, Trash

Biotic: plankton, fish, sea birds, turtles, sharks, whales, etc.

Carrying Capacity: changes in the Pacific ocean due to trash pollution killing off
ecosystems reduces capacity

Resources: water,aquatic plants and marine life for food, oxidation in the water,
sunlight for photosynthesis
Competition between predators
(top of chart) for the prey (bottom
of chart).

Parasitism/Predation where the

predator kills the prey

Commensalism in the smaller

animals living in plants such as the
sea anemones for protection

Mutualism where smaller fish get

their food by cleaning bigger fish
Ocean Plastic Crisis
Pacific Garbage Patch
❏ Covers 994,193 square miles
❏ 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic
❏ 80,000 tons of garbage
❏ 99% of everything is plastic
Why is this an issue?
❏ 100,000 marine animals die each year from garbage in our oceans
❏ It can take anywhere between 20-1000 years for a plastic bag to break up.
And they break down into polymers and toxic chemicals
❏ Around 46,000 pieces of plastic in every square mile of ocean
❏ 13,000-15,000 pieces of plastic are dumped into the ocean every day
❏ Scientists have identified 200 areas declared as ‘dead zones’ where no living
organisms can grow.
Both these beached whales were killed by ingesting plastic
As well as these turtles
And these sea birds
Driving Questions
How do humans have a lasting impact on species or
populations and this environment?

❏ Humans produce this trash

❏ Humans dump this trash into our oceans
❏ Our trash kills off populations and create dead zones in our oceans
❏ This disrupt homeostasis in the ecosystems
How can we minimize humans impact on this environment?

❏ Reduce trash in our oceans

❏ Produce less plastic
❏ Recycle and reuse
❏ Properly dispose of trash (don’t litter)
❏ Use more biodegradable object
❏ Efforts to keep trash away from beaches and oceans
How can we humans prioritize the solutions to minimize
human impact on this environment given social,
environmental, and economic factors?
❏ Spreading awareness of our impact tackles the social issue
❏ More volunteers and donations for current organizations tackles the
environmental issue
❏ More research and funding for groups creating earth friendly products can
make these products more available and mainstream tackles the economic
issue
Our Solution
Our Effort
We wanted to actively make a difference in our community to help reduce the
trash flow coming from our coasts.

We decided the best way to do this was hold a beach cleanup with volunteers at
our local beaches
Beach Clean Up
Ocean Beach, three hours, nine people, twelve buckets of trash
What we collected
❏ Tiny pieces of plastic
❏ Glass and plastic bottles
❏ Bottle caps
❏ Cardboard
❏
❏
❏
Plastic bags
Paper
Styrofoam
23.5 lbs
❏ Tinfoil
❏ And more
Website

https://cleanupourbeachesstem.weebly.com/
Current Foundations
Ocean Conservatory

https://oceanconservancy.org/trash-free-seas/international-coastal-cleanup/

Surfrider

https://www.surfrider.org/programs/beach-cleanups

Heal the Bay

https://healthebay.org/take-part/
 Work Cited
https://crochetcoralreef.org/about/great_pacific_garbage_patch.php

https://encounteredu.com/cpd/subject-updates/marine-carbon-cycle

https://marinebio.org/conservation/marine-ecology/symbionts-parasites/

https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/patch.html

http://oceancrusaders.org/plastic-crusades/plastic-statistics/

https://usa.oceana.org/pacific-garbage-patch

https://www.foxnews.com/science/plan-to-clear-great-pacific-garbage-patch-texas-sized-island-of-trash-in-ocean-draws-concerns

http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org/

https://www.theoceancleanup.com/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-weighs-more-than-43000-cars-and-is-way-bigger-than-previously-thought

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/