Date: TBA
Location: Environmental Studies Center, Mobile, Alabama
Drifters are devices that track water currents. Drifters can be constructed from simple and inexpensive materials, launched in local waters and followed through a phone app using GPS tracking. Knowing the speed and direction of water currents gives us the ability to predict a variety of things including paths that spilled pollutants might follow, areas where algal blooms may spread and where local ‘garbage patches’ might occur.
Join the team from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab for a workshop to explore drifters, their construction, deployment, and applications; and to explore the ability to use drifters to track trash through watersheds. We’ll build model drifters and explore a series of lesson plans focused on drifters, the Mobile Bay watershed, and the problem of debris in local waters. Participants will learn how to bring this STEM and data-rich activity into the classroom and explore an opportunity for students to work with the DISL on a full-scale drifter deployment in the Mobile Bay area.
