Instructor - QUBES Lesson Coral and MPs.pdf(PDF | 615 KB)
Intro Powerpoint - QUBES Lesson Coral and MPs.pptx(PPTX | 8 MB)
R Markdown - QUBES Lesson Coral and MPs.Rmd(RMD | 9 KB)- Research paper - Oliveira Soares et al 2020.pdf(PDF | 488 KB)
- Research Paper - Rotjan et al 2019.pdf(PDF | 877 KB)
Rotjan et al data.xlsx(XLSX | 9 KB)- Student - QUBES Lesson Coral and MPs.pdf(PDF | 612 KB)
- License terms
Description
This QUBES lesson explores the impact of microplastics on coral. Participants will first get a background on both coral and microplastics, and then the lesson will delve more specifically into how microplastics in the ocean affect coral, specifically ingestion preference. The study “Patterns, dynamics and consequences of microplastic ingestion by the temperate coral, Astrangia poculata” by Rotjan RD, Sharp KH, Gauthier AE, Yelton R, Lopez EMB, Carilli J, Kagan JC, & Urban-Rich J (2019) is the basis for the lesson, with the data obtained from Dryad. The hands-on portion of the lesson will use select data from this study for analyses in R including plots and a paired permutation test. Participants will then be asked to answer questions about the lesson and use critical thinking to apply what they have learned to explore potential future directions and applications.
Expected completion time is 1 class period (1.5 hours).
Includes: Instructor master lesson PDF, student lesson PDF, powerpoint introduction, R Markdown, data excel spreadsheet, PDFs of 2 key research papers.
Cite this work
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
- Hoekstra, A. (2021). Ingestion of Microplastics by Coral. VCU Environmental Research Methods, QUBES Educational Resources. doi:10.25334/Q18N-7165