Summary

In this activity, students will answer questions while watching the video Is the Answer to Overfishing… Algae? from the Ingenious series produced by the American Chemical Society. Each episode investigates a different topic related to how leading-edge chemistry is taking on the world’s most urgent issues to advance everyone’s quality of life and secure our shared future. This episode investigates Omega-3s, the essential nutrient that humans have to get from fish. However, fish don’t make their own Omega-3s. Like humans, they must get them from an important part of their diet, algae. But with over-fishing considerations and fish-farming limitations, scientists are working to develop a new way to harvest Omega-3s to maintain stability.

Grade Level

High School

Objectives

By the end of this activity, students should be able to:

• Explain the relationship between ocean-fishing, farm-fishing, and over-fishing. 
• Describe the challenges with farm-fishing.
• Briefly describe the importance of Omega-3s.
• Explain how and why Schizochytrium algae can be valuable to the fishing industry.

Chemistry Topics

This activity supports students’ understanding of:

• Biochemistry
• Environmental Chemistry
• Organic Chemistry
• Molecular Structure
• Functional Groups

Time

Teacher Preparation: minimal
Lesson: 10-20 minutes

Materials

• Ingenious Video: Is the Answer to Overfishing… Algae?
• Student Handout
• Computer and projector with volume, or student device to access video

Safety

• No specific safety precautions need to be observed for this activity.

Teacher Notes

• The Ingenious video series spotlights stories from the frontlines of chemistry research and development, where passionate innovators are stepping up to confront problems like pollution, overfishing, sustainability and personal safety.
• This video, Is the Answer to Overfishing… Algae?, investigates Omega-3s, the essential nutrient that humans have to get from fish. But many of the world’s fish species are in crisis because we’ve taken too many of them from the ocean. So the answer is to farm more fish, right? While fish-farming relieves some pressure on the ocean’s wild species, it also contributes to the pressure, since farmed fish are fed fishmeal made from wild-caught fish. That’s because fish don’t make their own Omega-3s either. Like us, they get them from their diet. Using technology that came out of the space program, scientists have developed a way to cut out the middle-fish from the food chain and harvest Omega-3s for fishmeal directly from the source: algae.
• The running time of this video is about 7 minutes. As it is a short video and it moves quickly, you may want to show it twice, or instruct students to pause the video as needed on their own devices to ensure that they can record answers to all of the questions.
• The student questions/answers are presented in sequential order in the video.
• An answer key has also been provided for teacher reference.
• The final questions are reflection-based and might be helpful in prompting a class discussion after students have a few minutes to answer them independently.
• The AACT classroom resource library offers a wide selection of teaching resources. Below are several select resources that could be used in combination with the topics highlighted in this video.
  • ChemMatters Magazine Article: Double, Double, Oil, and Trouble!
  • ChemMatters Magazine Article: Toxic Shorelines—The Science of Algal Blooms
  • Activity: Achieving a Photosynthetic Balance
  • Lab: The Chemical Process of Photosynthesis