Impact of Marine Debris in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

The coral reefs and marine life of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands represent nearly 70% of the United States coral reef system and are currently endangered from multiple stressors. One of these stressors, marine debris, is completely avoidable because it is brought about by human impact. Most of the debris consists of large amounts of derelict fishing gear that accumulates and causes significant damage to shallow coral reefs, and is a persistent threat to wildlife. This instructional module delivered information about the impact of marine debris in an easy to navigate website that also utilized videos and images to demonstrate the concepts. Survey results indicated that almost all participants enjoyed the module and one indicated they would like to expand on this project in their PhD program. All participants showed an improvement from the pretest to the posttest