10th Grade Science

Corbin Williams

GO Night Project - Plastic Pollution

November 6 (2nd Quarter/2019)

Ms. Arter

Sophomore Year- Chemistry - Communicate Ideas - Selects and applies appropriate resources, such as technology and media, to communicate and collaborate with a range of diverse individuals.

For my sophomore year science artifact, I have decided to use my JAGS Go Night project from my sophomore year. This was a fantastic group project that we spent a large chunk of the first semester working on up until GO Night in November. My group consisted of multiple of my peers in the JAGS program and our project was centered around plastic pollution in the oceans. The ISSN domain that can be best applied to this group project is “Communicate Ideas.” The multiple months of working on this project led to a large organized event at Jackson High School known as GO Night which is where the five of us presented our completed projects to students, staff, and parents. We communicated our ideas to an audience on the major issue of ocean plastic, which is a topic that all of us think needs to be addressed.

This project started not long into our sophomore year and it is one of the most important projects and events of the year, especially since it counts as major grade in

all three of my JAGS classes, which includes JAGS chemistry. The purpose of the project was to create a detailed project about a global issue that we feel strongly about that also connects to one or more of the United Nations sustainable development goals. Ms. Arter, Mrs. Muckley, and Mrs. Arganza, the teachers leading this project, also required us to take action in some kind of way. We created a very good slideshow about the dangers of plastic in the ocean that also included solutions to this global problem and interactive games to help keep the audience engaged and better communicate our ideas. We presented many different plastic items that cause harm to oceans and sea life and directed our audience to numerous solutions. Probably the most effective part of our presentation was the different information that we provided and a lot of it is related to science and environmental issues, which is why I placed this artifact under the science category. We started off our presentation talking about bakelite, which is a synthetic alternative to plastic. We also talked about microplastic and its effects on science and the environment, specifically with sea life health and mortality rates, as well as threats to human health, the health of sealife, marine biodiversity, and even the human food chain. A surprising amount of science was involved in this project, which is one of the reasons that I really enjoyed it. Sadly, our planned Cuyahoga National Park plastic cleanup event had to be cancelled due to weather. We also had an expert at our presentation to help us talk about the issues of plastic pollution.

This project was a very important one because not only did we learn about a major world issue that has effects on life around the globe, but we were able to communicate with an audience to inform them as well and make them more aware and globally competent citizens. This was a very eye opening experience for us and not only did it teach us about a major global issue, but we also learned how to work as a group. Five people is the largest group that I have ever worked with on a major group project, so it was very important to learn how to work together and communicate to get the project done with the best quality possible. We never encountered any kind of teamwork issues, but we all learned a lot of time management skills, as well as inventive ways to split up work and research. Overall, I believe that this experience has had a great effect on making me a global citizen and the final product and work experience demonstrates my growth as a JAGS student.