Teacher Preparation

Overarching learning goal: In this activity students will identify strategies used in environmental campaigns and will recognise tools for communicating meaning and message in these campaigns. Finally, students will also understand some of the causes and effects of marine waste on marine environments.

Teacher content information: The impacts of marine waste on marine environments include -

Danger to animal life from ingestion:
- Animals feed on plastics that fill them up but don't provide any nutrition, resulting in starvation; and
- Animals feed on toxic waste, so toxic materials enter the food chain, causing illness and death.
Danger to animal life from entanglement (animals get trapped in marine waste);
Pollution of natural marine habitats; and
Water pollution

There are a number of organisations and agencies involved with marine waste, both cleaning it up and campaigning for keeping waste out of our oceans. However, the success of these organisations and agencies face is difficult: for many people marine waste is "out of sight, out of mind" and it is difficult to engage people on an issue they can't physically see or experience; the oceans are incredibly vast and hard to clean up; and that no one agency or country is responsible for cleaning up marine waste.

Cool Australia Presents Waste from Cool Australia on Vimeo.

Instead of using the images we have provided, ask students to find their own images or videos in a pre-lesson activity, and use the questions on the student worksheet to analyse these images and videos.

Teaching Sequence

Step 1

Begin this activity by asking students to refresh their knowledge of marine waste by brainstorming what they already know about marine waste and its impacts on marine environments.

Record this information on the board or use an online brainstorming tool (such as bubbl.us or mindmeister).

Step 2

Ask students to think if they have seen any campaigns that relate to marine waste. What kinds of images are used? Images that are commonly used show animals living in and around rubbish, or even worse, animals dying because of ingestion of rubbish or entanglement in rubbish. It is always a challenge when creating a campaign around such an issue to have a hard-hitting message without it being so hard-hitting that people are turned off or too distressed to take in the message.

Step 3

In the next part of this activity, students are asked analyse a series of images and videos used to raise awareness and encourage positive action around marine waste. Students can work independently or in groups from the Student Worksheet.

Once complete, ask students to share their responses to the questions. In addition, engage students in a class discussion around the following points:

What are the main messages of the images and videos?
Overall, how successful are these campaigns at communicating their messages?
How could these campaign images and videos be improved?

Step 4

Break students into groups of 3 or 4. Ask each group to imagine that they are working for a marine waste awareness organisation working on a campaign to encourage people to take positive action around marine waste. Their group is responsible for creating a central image and video around which the rest of the campaign will circulate. The video and image should support each other but should also be able to stand alone without depending on one or the other for explanation.

Groups should think about:

Who the target audience is;
What the message is;
What challenges are associated with this message and how can they be overcome;
What images, music or narrative will support their video;
How images, sound and camera angles and framing can be manipulated to create mood and setting;
Demonstrate awareness of responsible media practices.

Step 5

Ask groups to present their video and image to the class.

Extension

1. Ask groups to prepare some information around the rest of the marine waste campaign. This could include:

How long the campaign will run;
Where will the campaign be run (online, social media, television, radio etc);
Students should prepare a short (one page) report detailing this information.

2. Run a marine waste awareness campaign at your school using the image and videos the students have made. Consider loading these materials onto the school website.

Seal the Loop - Marine Waste Campaign Analysis

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