​Environmental Plastic Assessment Program (EPAP)

Working closely with Professor David Schwartz of Cabrillo College Earth and Marine Science departments, COI developed a training course in field survey tools and techniques to describe localized plastic pollution globally.

Students earn extra credit by learning to document the amount and types of plastic on our beaches to our own COI protocol and practice basic field assessment and data recording.

​Training Program

​The class meets 8 sessions per semester. It includes a course overview, classroom instruction, and four field survey practice sessions. It finishes back in the classroom for data entry and public presentation.

Students are encouraged to share their presentations to outside community groups to raise awareness of plastic pollution at home and abroad.

​Fantastic Results

The program has evolved through 12 semesters of trial and sharing with other organizations and school programs in ocean centric communities.

Students from this training have become volunteers for COI. For some, the experience gained in these trainings and expeditions has set them on a path to become our instructors at home and internationally.
 
The Goal is to provide trained instructors to teach our program to partner communities, enabling localized plastic monitoring at a global scale at almost no cost. For any plastic reduction program to be effective it must have a comparative baseline to define progress or lack of it.

Future expeditions will have opportunities for greater public involvement.