Ocean Colour: Health and Improvement of Coastal Water Quality

Subjects:

Environmental management

Objectives:

Identify the problems in international water quality management and discuss them in class.

Materials:

• List of fictitious characters
  
  
• Maps (next page) Maps of eutrophication: Political consensus versus remotely sensed observations
  
  
• Optional: newspaper or magazine articles, information from the Internet about harmful algal blooms and a, and as an example, the OSPAR Commission (protecting and conserving the North-East Atlantic and its resources)

Time needed:

• One hour
  
  

Procedure:

Prepare yourself for a role-playing discussion in class. The pupils take up the role of one of the fictitious characters listed in the two tables below.
Setting 1: First there is an internal meeting of a fictitious Commission protecting and conserving the North-East Atlantic and its resources. This commission has agreed about eutrophication problem areas and potential problem areas and is now internally briefed by Prof. RS about outcomes from a remote sensing project. Discuss the implications of the results of Mr RS.
Setting 2: An eco-friendly journalist read the scientific article of Prof. RS, and has organised a round table discussion to discuss the implications of the results.
Write a short 1 A4 report about the results from the two discussions and present it.

Content:Phytoplankton bloom in Belgian coastal waters