Name: ______Date: ______Period: ______

Rubber Ducks, Nikes and the Pacific

It was a dark and stormy night. Huge waves crashed over the deck of the freighter “Hasana Carrier”, a container ship carrying, among other cargo, 80,000 pairs of Nikes in 6 40-foot containers on deck bound for Tacoma, Washington from South Korea. So huge were some of the waves that they knocked all of the Nike containers overboard. Five of the six containers opened as they gurgled their way down to the bottom of the Pacific, allowing 60,000 Nikes to begin a journey of thousands of miles floating across the Pacific. Months and even years later some of these shoes were found by beachcombers along the western coast of North America. The shoes were still wearable and weekend swap meets were organized. These Nikes were also found in Hawaii and are eventually expected to be found in Asia and Japan.

A similar incident occurred just two years later when another container vessel bound from Hong Kong to Tacoma plowed through another storm in almost the same spot, causing the contents to spill into the Pacific as their containers broke open; in alllosing 12 containers of 29,000 bathtub toys such as yellow rubber ducks. Months later hundreds of toys began to show up along the coast of Alaska; about 2% of all Nikes and toys were recovered.

The information below was gathered by researchers as these washed-up objects were found after their long voyages. Your job will be to plot these locations and determine the speeds and directions of currents which caused these unusual beach deposits.

NIKE SHOESRUBBER DUCKS

Days elapsed since spill / Location Found
0 (spill day) / 45° N / 178° W
300 / 57° N / 135° W
330 / 59° N / 140° W
360 / 61° N / 146° W
540 / 53° N / 162° W
720 / 59° N / 162° W
Days elapsed since spill / Location Found
Latitude / Longitude
0 (spill day) / 48° N / 161° W
190 / 48° N / 125° W
249 / 52° N / 128° W
300 / 54° N / 133° W
310 / 45° N / 124° W
340 / 43° N / 125° W
730 / 20° N / 157° W

Procedure: Using the data above, plot the locations of the Nikes and ducks on the accompanying map. At each location write a small x and the number of days elapsed for the shoes, and a small o and the number of days elapsed for the ducks.

Analysis and Conclusions:

1. Circular ocean currents are called gyres. On the map, use arrows to draw the gyre(s) which the shoes and ducks might have followed.

2. How far, in km, did the shoes and ducks drift from the site of teir spill to the coastline, when they arrived at the coast? (scale 1cm = 575km) Write the equation you will use below:

Shoes ______Ducks ______(Be sure to label your answer)

3. How many days did it take the shoes to first arrive along the coast?

Shoes ______Ducks ______

4. What was the daily rate of drift: (in km/day) for each?

Equation: distance traveled/time = rate

Example: If you travel 100m in 2 days, your rate = 100km/2 days or 50km/day.

SHOW YOUR WORK:

Shoes ______Ducks ______(be sure to label your answer)

5. The shoes traveled faster than the ducks. Propose a hypothesis to explain the faster shoes (i.e. Does it have to do with their shape, their weight, where they were dropped?)

6. Create a plan to test your hypothesis in step #5. (Write out what you would do, step by step.)

7. The shoes floated low in the water while the ducks floated high in the water. How could this fact have changed the course and speed of each? (Hint: Neither one is affected by density currents)

8. Try to explain why some Nikes drifted northward along the coast, while others drifted south.

9. Predict where the shoes and ducks might be found in 6 months after their last known plotted position. Place an S for your predicted shoe position, and a D for your predicted duck position. How did you decide where to place your 6-month predicted positions?

10. The path of the toys became 600km wide after 6 months at sea. What could have made the toys spread so far apart?

11. Computer models and historical records predict the some of the rubber ducks would eventually arrive in Greenland, whiles some shoes would arrive in Japan. Draw the currents on your map which might take them to these places.

Challenge Question: Draw a straight line on the map between Hong Kong and Tacoma. This line seems to be the path of the ship carrying the toys. How do you explain the fact that the actual site of the toy spill was nowhere near this straight-line path? Use a globe to help you understand why the ship was not off course.

PART 2 – Read the following article and answer the questions that follow

Wednesday July 16, 2003

Associated Press

BOSTON – Being thrown away from a container ship, drifting for more than a decade, bobbing through three oceans – it’s enough to turn a rubber duckie white.

A floating flock of bathtub toys, bleached and battered from a trans-Atlantic journey, is believed to be washing ashore somewhere along the New England coast. Oceanographers say the trip has provided valuable lessons about the ocean’s currents.

The toys including beavers, turtles and frogs, have been adrift since 29,000 of them fell from a storm-tossed container ship en route from China to Seattle more than 11 years ago.

From a point in the Pacific Ocean near where the 45th parallel meets the International Date Line, they floated along the Alaskan coast, reaching the Bering Strait by 1995 and Iceland 5 years later. By 2001, they had floated to the area in the North Atlantic where the Titanic sank.

“Some kept going, some turned and headed to Europe,” says Curtis Ebbesmeyer of Seattle, a retired oceanographer who’s been tracking the toys’ progress. “By now, hundreds should be dispersed along the New England coast.”

Ebbesmeyer has been able to track the toys with the help of duckies that washed ashore along the way. He said they have been a useful tool in teaching oceanography and have shed light on the way surface currents behave.

The toys are also a sobering reminder that about 10,000 containers fall off cargo ships each year, creating all manner of flotsam and jetsam.

“When trash goes into the ocean, it doesn’t disappear,” Ebbesmeyer said. “It just goes somewhere else.”

Fred Felleman of the environmental group Ocean Advocates said container ships carry 95% of the world’s goods and are stacked higher and wider than ever before, raising the odds of spillage.”

“Some 30% have hazardous materials in them,” he said. “They’re not just spilling Nikes.”

QUESTIONS

1. What is the path the ducks took? (start with what you plotted, and continue with what they say in the article.)

2. Where does Curtis Ebbesmeyer predict the ducks will eventually be found? How long after the spill will they be found there?

3. How have the ducks been useful?

4. Are Nikes and ducks the only things that have ever been spilt in the ocean? Explain.

5. Why is the spilling of cargo into the ocean a concern?

Challenge Question: What are flotsam and jetsam?