Progress report for
Pacific plastic pollution: A system for regional grassroots solutions
Achievement at a glance
We have successfully completed the first two deliverables in our commitment; the Research and Piloting phases of the project. Through a collaboration with our Ministry for the Environment, we have now secured funding for three years' worth of design, development and implementation of this project where our charity is based, in Aotearoa New Zealand. This workstream started in May 2018, and has involved designing and developing the training resources, workshops, equipment, and technology needed to set-up Citizen Scientist beach litter Monitoring Groups around the country.In late 2018, our team began training groups to collect long-term beach litter data, and at time of writing six official Monitoring Sites had been established at beaches around New Zealand, with dozens more scheduled for set-up in the coming months. The core Citizen Scientist data entry web application has been built and is currently in use, and our developers have completed the litter database back-end, user management system and administrative features.
Alongside this work, we have also developed an innovative new schools education programme that aims to inspire and empower students to scale-up solutions to litter. In February 2019 we begin our first pilot study of this programme, initially focusing on a small number of early-adopter schools. Working alongside education experts and behaviour change advisors, we are developing professional development opportunities for teachers, and embedding behavioural change and influencing techniques into the student-led learning process. At its core, the programme ensures that students get strong outdoor experiences to connect back with nature, while incorporating real-world contexts into their academic learning. Our team is also working alongside their principals to ensure the programme ties-in and complements the education system.
Challenges faced in implementation
While our budget for technology development is considerable, it does not currently cover the development of the more aspirational features that we are planning. Incorporating some of our Artificial Intelligence and gamification features will greatly increase the automation, user experience and uptake of the platform, however will require additional budget. To extend the scope of the technological development we are in discussions with a number of corporate partners. The long-term scope of the project requires effort to ensure continuity beyond the current April 2021 project funding period, and this is still in negotiation.Beneficiaries
We are already working with dozens of schools, community groups, local government agencies and individuals around New Zealand, delivering our Citizen Science training workshops and establishing beach litter data monitoring sites. For our education programme, we are working with school principals, teachers, education professionals, education networks and school students themselves to design and pilot our new approach.
We are also working with a number of key government departments, collaborating with our funders from the Ministry for the Environment, Department of Conservation as a peer reviewer of the scientific protocol, and Statistics New Zealand on data quality assurance. The litter data collected is available openly and freely to all beneficiaries so that anyone can use it to make decisions to reduce litter, long-term.