Teaching for Change: Christine Casali Brings Plastic Pollution Awareness to the Classroom

Apr 22, 2025 | Classroom Activities, Community News, Educator Spotlight

Wayfinder Society is for environmental educators who believe in the power of collective action. It is an online platform hosting a robust offering of classroom and teaching resources that makes it easy for educators to create a fun, dynamic, and engaging classroom and to inspire their students through environmental awareness and action. Every other month, we highlight an educator in our network.

 

Mrs. Christine Casali, M.Ed. is a high school science teacher at Dedham Public Schools in Massachusetts. Driven by a passion for plastics education, she joined Algalita’s Educator Ally program—an initiative rooted in the belief that educators are key allies in environmental movements. The program supports teachers like Mrs. Casali with resources, community, and inspiration to bring plastic pollution education into the classroom and empower the next generation of changemakers. 

Christine’s Pathway to Teaching 

As a child, Christine dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. In high school, she interned at a local vet clinic, where she saw firsthand what a profession in the field would be like. While the experience deepened her respect for life and the natural world, she realized being a vet wasn’t quite the right fit. She went back to the drawing board to focus on her new career goal. This discovery phase led her to reflect on some of the things and experiences she loved most: being a varsity swimmer, being in water, and being in awe watching the sea life at SeaWorld. So, she decided she would get a marine biology degree and become a killer whale trainer. 

After graduating Roger WIlliams University, Christine did an internship at Disney’s Animal Kingdom as an Education Presenter. She loved teaching others about biology and environmental stewardship, but wanted to dive deeper into topics that the time and setting didn’t allow. After the internship, she returned home to Massachusetts to get her teacher certification for high school biology in order to go deeper into these topics she was so interested in with students and educators. Soon after, she continued her education earning a Master of Education. 

Plastic Pollution Realizations 

Christine’s awareness of plastic pollution and its impact on the environment and communities began early on in life. Her mother, a lifelong teacher, introduced her to the issue as global conversations around plastic waste were gaining momentum. Christine distinctly remembers a unit on packaging that her mother shared with her—one that opened her eyes to the consequences of our consumption-driven society and the challenges posed by plastic – one of the most common modern materials. That lesson stuck with her, shaping her perspective and inspiring her to reflect on her own habits. 

As she prepared for college, Christine began making more conscious choices—shopping at yard sales, opting for reusable containers over single-use plastics, and looking for other solutions that were out there. In college, she led an International Coastal Cleanup with a local Audubon chapter in Rhode Island, where volunteers documented every piece of debris collected. The experience reinforced her understanding of the growing plastic pollution crisis. When she began teaching marine biology, she felt it was her duty to pass this education on to her students and empower them to be part of the solution. 

Integrating Plastics Education in the Classroom 

Early on in Christine’s teaching journey, she was introduced to Algalita when she was building out her first marine debris curriculum and was excited to integrate the Plastic Ocean Investigation Toolkit into the curriculum. She resonated with Algalita’s focus on breaking down barriers for researchers to be a part of the expeditions to the North Pacific Gyre and their work in bringing this issue to millions across the globe.  

“The toolkits bring the problem into the classroom. It helps to make it real for the students. I love that the lesson plans are free with easily downloadable and customizable materials that can be easily integrated into my existing curriculum” – Christine Casali 

Today, Christine continues to use the same reusable toolkit and has incorporated other resources from Algalita to help further her student’s learning on the subject. Here are some of the Algalita resources she’s integrated into her 2025 Marine Plastic Pollution and Ocean Currents Unit: 

The Story of Plastic Documentary (2+ hours) – Christine starts her unit with this captivating documentary that dives into the human impacts of the plastics industry.  This alternative focus on humans instead of the environment is an important shift that we need to embrace to be able to address the issue of plastic pollution responsibly. 

The Story of Plastic System Mapping (1 hour) – She then has her students reinforce the connections they made from watching the film with our Systems Mapping Action. This Student Hub Action has students learn about and map out how plastic influences our world: our choices, planet, health, and social systems. Actions can be completed by students on their own or adapted as a classroom activity. 

Photo of completed systems mapping activity in Mrs. Casali’s classroom 

This activity is part of the Student Hub Systems Thinker Pathway (varies) – which guides students through 2 more Actions. The Student Hub Pathways help guide students in taking action in an area they are most interested in. Mrs. Casali uses this resource as a way to bring tangible activities to her students to complement the information students learn from the lesson plans and toolkits. 

The Problem with Plastics (30 mins) – To help students further understand the benefits and consequences of plastics for people and the planet, she uses our Problem with Plastics Think Pair Share activity. Click here for Mrs. Casali’s adapted worksheet. 

Plastic Ocean Teaching Toolkit (50 mins) – By this time, students have a strong foundational understanding of this multifaceted issue. Building from this, she integrates our Plastic Ocean Toolkit tasking students to investigate the impacts of microplastics on our oceans with 3 rotating hands-on activities. 

Synthetic Sand Toolkit (30-60 mins) – This toolkit is another engaging way to bring hands-on learning to students to observe how microplastics impact coastal ecosystems by analyzing real microplastic-contaminated sand from Southern California. 

Photo of Synthetic Sand activity in Mrs. Casali’s classroom 

Plastic Pollution Sources and Sinks (30-60 mins) – Now that students have learned how plastic pollution impacts environments, Mrs. Casali incorporates the Sources and Sinks lesson where students explore how plastic gets into ecosystems in the first place by analyzing evidence cards from real photographs taken in the field. 

Christine is an educator who embodies where Algalita hopes all educators can get to eventually—teaching plastic pollution as part of a much larger, interconnected system. Her work goes beyond ocean plastics, inviting students to explore currents, gyres, and the natural systems that shape our planet. She’s making critical connections that spark deeper understanding and action. At Algalita, we’re proud to support educators like Mrs. Casali in making those connections by providing the resources, tools, and community needed to reach this level of systems-based understanding. 

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In addition to Algalita’s resources, here are other resources Christine leverages in her classroom: 

  • GIZMOS – A paid Explore Learning product she uses to teach about tides and other natural phenomenon