Flotsam Bronx River Introduction

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Flotsam is what seafarers call junk floating in the water. Even though many people spend clean-up days along the river, there is still a lot of flotsam in the water.

You can participate in making sure your watershed is clean. First, make sure you don't litter. Wherever you are when you litter-whether you are standing on a street corner or a mountaintop-the article you drop stands a good chance of winding up in water or along a beach. That's because litter washes and gets blown by the wind to lower and lower parts of a watershed until it ends in the lowest spot, which is a body of water.

Could litter outside your school wind up in a local body of water?

Think about where you school is located in relationship to the nearest body of water. Write a paragraph on a piece of your own paper about the path a piece of litter could take from the front of your school to a local body of water. (Think about storm water and street drains. Do any of those go straight into a local water supply?) Turn your description in to your teacher.