Project by: Finn Barden (10th Grade)
Project Advisor: Anna Gonzales
Student’s Advisor: Stephen MacGillivray
Description of the Project:
Marine debris is a huge problem. Beach cleanups not only remove trash from the beach but also protect marine animals from being sick, injured, or killed by improving the coastal ecosystem. I propose organizing and conducting a number of beach cleanups on Long Island. During each cleanup I will document the various items collected. I will share the data collected with the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society as part of their research efforts. These clean ups will not only improve the ecosystem and support research but will also raise awareness about marine debris. Each week I will go on one or two beach walks and pick up trash along the way and document my findings. I will also be writing reflections of what I did each week, like where I went and what I found on my walks. As my final product I will make a poster of some of the strangest or concerning objects that I found on the beach to show other students that pollution is a problem and encourage others to go on beach cleanups. I will also add pictures and explanations of what these objects can do to marine life and how dangerous they actually are.
Final Product (e.g., documents, images, video, audio, poster, display, etc.):
Below is the final poster for my honors project:
Beach Cleanup Honors Project Poster
Final Reflection on Learning:
Over the course of this trimester I have gone on eight beach walks and along the way I have learned about what certain objects can have on marine life and the environment. I have found a ton of trash throughout all my walks and I have learned first hand that there is always trash that needs to be picked up because every time I went back to the same beach there was more and more garbage there. I hope that with this project I can convince others to also go out on beach walks and pick up trash along the way. The spreadsheet with all the information from my beach walks can be found right below.
Loading...
Reload document 
Open in new tab Update on Progress from Weeks 1-3 (include any photos or video if relevant):
Week one I went to Flying Point Beach in Long Island and found a lot of garbage because no one actually does beach cleanups when it’s not summer and nobody even comes to the beach in the first place. I found some rope, some plastic strings, a bottle, a shotgun shell, a dead horseshoe crab, a fishing bobber, and a lot of wood/charcoal. The second week there was significantly less trash because as previously mentioned, people don’t go to the beach before summer as it is too cold. On this week I found some plastic bags, a lighter, a tennis ball, a pen, some Styrofoam, a bottle cap, and even more wood which was mainly from broken fence posts that were previously protecting the dunes. The third week I wasn’t able to go on a beach walk, but I was able to meet with my project mentor Anna for the first time, as the previous two weeks we had some confusion with our schedules. We talked about what I found from my two beach walks and discussed how some of the more questionable objects got on the beach. For example the shotgun shell that I found really surprised me, but I did some research and it turns out that people like to go to the beach and practice skeet shooting because it’s a big open area with very few people around when it’s cold outside.
Update on Progress from Weeks 4-6 (include any photos or video if relevant):
On week four I went on two beach walks to make up for the one that I missed from week three. The first walk I did that week I went to Ocean Beach and I took a right turn and went along that way down the beach. There was very little trash on the right side of the beach. All i found was some plastic bags/wrappers, a balloon, some Styrofoam, a bit of rope, and lastly a pair of goggles. Although this sounds like a lot, it only weighed one pound which is the smallest amount compared to any ither walk I did so far on this project. On my other walk on Ocean Beach however, there was a ton of trash. This was probably because I went left and it’s much more flat on the left side and people can find better spots to hang out there. I found seven whole pounds of trash which is crazy to me. I found loads of plastic bags/bottles, some balloons, some wrappers, some Styrofoam, some stirrers/straws, some pieces of plastic, some wood, a toy, and a pair of glasses. Something interesting that I found on this walk was two plastic bags with dog poop in them. This confused me because it’s better for the environment to just leave the poop there than to go through the effort of putting it in a bag and just leaving it on the beach I also found a ton of glass near the entrance of the beach and I found a dead crab as well. On the fifth week I went on another walk on Ocean Beach and went left to make sure that there wasn’t some trash that I missed, as there was a ton of it there. I found about two pounds of trash this time and the trash I got was some balloons, a pair of abandoned shoes, some wrappers, some rope, some straws, some plastic pieces, a plastic cup, a tennis ball, a wine glass, and some paper towels. I wasn’t able to go on a walk on week six but i plan to make it up next week on week seven. I also met with my project mentor on week four and five but we couldn’t meet on week six.
Update on Progress from Weeks 7-9 (include any photos or video if relevant):
On week seven I went to Ocean Beach yet again because every time I go there I find a good amount of trash. I found some plastic bags, some bottles and cans, some wrappers, a shotgun shell, straws, a tampon applicator, Styrofoam, pieces of plastic, wood, a tennis ball, a pen, a syringe with a needle on it, a COVID mask, and something that looked like a wallet. I was pretty shocked to find a needle and syringe because a beach is where kids go to have fun and its scary to think that there are people doing dangerous drugs in that same place. On week eight I went on two walks, one at Flying Point Beach for the third time and one at Ocean Beach for the fifth time. I went on two this week because I still hadn’t made up to walk i missed for week six. Also, These are my final two walks and there are only eight because there aren’t actually nine weeks in the third trimester so I can only do eight total if I am doing once per week. For these last two walks, since there was quite a variety of trash that I found, I will just ask for the reader to check the spreadsheet for information. I will howeve, show picutres of what I found from these walks and mention that I found a second dead bird. This shows that there is a pattern of birds dying out on Long Island and it is almost definitely beacause of the birds’ consumption of plastic and/or fish that have consumed plastic themselves.
