[O-08] Poster presentations by senior high school students

[O08-P50] Elucidation of microplastics on sandy beaches - Toward the establishment of a nationwide mapping network -

*Aya Kasahara¹, Ayaka Oowada¹, Yuto Imai¹, Keitaro Iwama¹ (1.Miyagi prefecture sendai daisan high school)

Keywords:microplastics, sandy beach, Symposium

Though there are many ways to measure the amount of microplastics, it is difficult for high school students to try because expensive tools and chemicals are used. So we try to establish a way that even high school students can do easily. We also compare the amount of micro plastic by region and consider the data by washing and drying the sand, treating organic matter with 30% hydrogen peroxide, and performing specific gravity separation using purified water, and calculating the area ratio of microplastics on the beaker water surface was calculated using Image J. As a result, Katsurajima is 0.28%, Yuriage Coast is 3.55%, Ohama is 1.50%, Tsurishihama Beach is 1.91%, and Odaiba is 0.13%. There was a large difference in the percentage between sites facing the ocean and sites located in internal bays that were not affected by rivers. From this, it is thought that the amount of microplastics is significantly related to rivers.The sand used in the experiment was obtained from a high school that cooperated with us.Additionally, we held a ``Symposium on Ocean Issues for High School Students'' as a place to share the results of this research outside of school.