Research Questions

We learned that starting a research projects creates more questions than answers.

Where is the best place to collect samples?

We chose to concentrate on Stonewall Beach because we saw a lot of plastics on the rocks and in the tidelines. We were wondering if that because Stonewall Beach has large amount of rocks on it and they could cause larger pieces of plastic to be ground down.  To read more about Stonewall Beach click here.

While completing this project we were trying to figure out the best spots to collect our sand samples.  We wanted to collect sand from parts of the beach that seemed like they had plastics. We also discovered that if you come at low tide, you can see a line of washed up seaweed that contain plastics.  

We were also wondering if digging down in the sand would be a good idea along with collecting plastics from the top.

How much should we collect?

We were wondering how much to collect, how many samples, and how far apart the samples should be. Should we concentrate on one beach or collect samples for lots of beaches?  Was a gallon bag of sand really a big enough sample?

What is the best method for collecting samples?

We were wondering if taking the sand from the beach wasn't such a great idea and if we should return as much as we can.  

When is the best time to collect samples?

We were wondering how the tides times changed what we found.  We were wondering if low tide was a better time to find microplastics.  We noticed that when it was low tide you could normally see a tide line and in the tide line there would be a substantial amount of small plastics.

·         How does tide affect the micro plastics present in the top sand?

·         How do storms affect the micro plastics present in the top sand?

What the best method to find plastic in the sand samples?

We noticed that wet sand sticks together and doesn't go through the sieve, so we tried a number of different techniques.  The first we tried to use the power of the ocean to push the sand through the pvc sieves.  This worked well, but you lost some of your sample and it was time consuming.  For a more in depth description of this technique click here.  The second and best technique we used was to use a hose to wash the sand through the larger sieves.  To watch a video of this technique click here.  Even so, the hose technique did not work for the 0.3 mm sieve.  Another technique we tested was to dry the sand that was >1 mm to see if that would help us sift it through the 0.3 mm sieve. This was suggested by my technology and science teacher, Mrs.Ostertag. To learn more about this technique click here.  We still struggled to sift most of the sand through leaving us with too large of a sample size to locate microplastics.  The last technique we tried we called the buoyancy technique.  To learn about this technique click here.  

We were also wondering if we should purchase or make a sieve in between the 1mm and .3mm.

Another issue we ran into was our 1 mm and 0.3 mm sieves often got jammed with sand that was slightly larger than the mesh size and we spent lots of time cleaning it out.  We think it would be a good investment to purchase a sieve brush or maybe a metal grill brush would work.