Mid-Atlantic Prevent Balloon Litter Campaign Teacher Resources
Engaging Students to Prevent Balloon Litter
As educators, you can make a big difference in environmental issues! That is why we prepared a Teacher Kit to help you bring information and activities into your classroom to help prevent balloon litter.
Balloons are often purchased to be released during heartfelt ceremonies or celebrations. As a result, balloon litter is some of the most common litter found along Mid-Atlantic beaches and is among the top five most harmful types of litter for wildlife.
Included in this Teacher Kit are resources to share the message of the Prevent Balloon Litter campaign and to engage your students to take action by taking a pledge to never release balloons, but instead to select from many alternatives to celebrate without releasing balloons.
The Prevent Balloon Litter Campaign encourages people to learn about balloon litter - that released balloons do become harmful litter, to select alternatives to releasing balloons - to celebrate, honor and remember people and events, to pledge to use one of these alternatives and help prevent balloon litter, and to encourage others to do the same. The Prevent Balloon Litter campaign was designed with an approach called Community-Based Social Marketing (cbsm.com), which is focused on changing individual behavior and influencing change, and a social norm, at the community level.
We encourage you to bring this campaign to your classroom, get your students to brainstorm balloon release alternatives, sign the pledge, and share what they learn with other students at their school, at home and with their peer groups (sports, arts and other organizations).
The images of student artwork shown on this page were displayed on a bulletin board in the main hall of a school, which was designed by a 4th grade class to show what they learned about the impacts of balloon litter and with illustrations of other ways to celebrate and honor without balloon releases.
Any feedback on how we can make this Teacher Kit easier to integrate into your curriculum and more effective in engaging your students, would be greatly appreciated!
We also would love to receive any pictures you can capture (we will follow-up with a photo release form), including an image of what your students may create - such as a bulletin board or pledge banner.
Please contact us at PreventBalloonLitter@gmail.com.
Teacher Resources
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Classroom Conversation Script
General Outline of the Script -
● Discussion of litter, why we don’t like to litter
● How balloons become litter
● Balloon effects on wildlife/ecosystems/humans
● Alternative methods of celebration/remembrance (blow bubbles, plant a garden, dedicate a bench, etc)
● Plug for preventballoonlitter.org -
Balloon Litter and Impacts Factsheet
Balloon Debris: A Rising Concern -
Fact sheet on the types of balloon litter and the impacts of balloon litter.
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Alternatives to Balloon Release Factsheet
Wait! Don’t Release Balloons! -
Flyer (2 pages) highlighting many uplifting, litter-free alternatives to releasing balloons.
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Pledge Decals
8 decals per Avery Sheet #22570 (template compatibility - 22820, 22829, 22927, 22931, 22964, 27951, Presta 94056)
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Lesson Plan
Plastic Pollution and You, a resource for teachers published by New York Sea Grant, contains a number of lesson plans related to plastic pollution. Check out Lesson 3.3 for a plan related to balloon litter!
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Animated Videos
Balloon Litter: Say No to Letting It Go!
This animated video - 2:08 minute in English and 2:26 minute in Spanish - highlights the impacts of balloon litter and suggests alternatives to releasing balloons during events to celebrate and remember.
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On-line Pledge
Encourage your students to take the on-line pledge to never release balloons, but instead to select from many alternatives to celebrate without releasing balloons. Once they complete the pledge, students can get a pledge decal to show others their commitment.
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DIY Bubble Solution Recipes and Wands
Download an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet which provides bubble solution recipes and instructions for DIY bubble wands, including repurposing plastic drink bottles. Hand-out or sell the solution and wands with a message about not releasing balloons.
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Bubble Machine
Have fun during an outdoor school event illustrating the uplifting joy of bubbles as a way to celebrate instead of releasing balloons. Combine the bubble machine with an exhibit to hand-out or sell handmade bubble solution and wands with a message about not releasing balloons. The link below will take you to one possible source to order inexpensive and portable bubble machines.
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Poster - Alternative to Balloon Release
This 11 x 17 poster highlights an activity to celebrate instead of releasing balloons. Image by Katherine Hanlon.
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Poster - Alternative to Balloon Release
This 17 x 11 poster highlights an activity to celebrate or remember a person or event by planting a tree(s) instead of releasing balloons. Image taken by Courtney Hale.
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Poster - Alternative to Balloon Release
This 17 x 11 poster highlights an activity to celebrate or remember a person or event by planting a tree(s) instead of releasing balloons. This family was remembering a grandfather. Image taken by Marc Duf.
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Poster - Alternative to Balloon Release
This 11 x 17 poster highlights an activity to celebrate instead of releasing balloons. Image by Alexander Dummer.
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Poster - Impact of Balloon Litter
This 17 x 11 poster highlights the impact of balloon litter in wildlife. This image shows a Puffin entangled in balloon ribbon. The image was taken by Jill Fraser-Smith off Staithes, North Yorkshire, UK in the North Sea on 13 August 2017.
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Poster - Impact of Balloon Litter
This 17 x 11 poster highlights the impact of balloon litter on wildlife. This juvenile Kemp’s ridley (Lepidochelys kempii, about 2 yrs old) ingested a latex balloon with ribbon. The turtle was in a sargassum drift (it’s habitat) approximately 50 NM west of Sarasota, FL in the Gulf of Mexico. A latex/ribbon-knot was lodged in the turtle’s esophagus and was removed on July 11, 2009. Image taken by Blair Witherington, a research scientist.
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Poster - Impact of Balloon Litter
This 17 x 11 poster highlights the impacts of balloon release on wildlife. The horse in the picture is a (then) 2.5 year old filly named Alexandria's Angel (N9BFT-KP). The image was taken by Cat Volmer in May 2020 on the Maryland side of Assateague Island National Seashore. Luckily, Alexandria dropped the balloon, but they are a real threat to horses, especially when the strings get tangled in the grass they eat. Even more so because unlike most species, horses can't really vomit except in rare cases.
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Large Sticker for Public Display
This 10” x 10” sticker is designed for display in public spaces with high visibility - as an alternative to the campaign posters. It can be ordered from most vendors providing stickers. As for vinyl sticker with removeable adhesive.
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Large Sticker for Public Display
This 10” x 10” sticker is designed for display in public spaces with high visibility - as an alternative to the campaign posters. It can be ordered from most vendors providing stickers. As for vinyl sticker with removeable adhesive.
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Large Sticker for Public Display
This 10” x 10” sticker is designed for display in public spaces with high visibility - as an alternative to the campaign posters. It can be ordered from most vendors providing stickers. As for vinyl sticker with removeable adhesive.
The Prevent Balloon Litter Teacher Kit was produced by the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program through grants from the NOAA Office for Coastal Management and Marine Debris Program, and by MARCO with a grant from the NOAA Marine Debris Program for a Prevent Balloon Litter Campaign in the Mid-Atlantic.
