Fighting plagiarism is serious business. From brainchild-snatching to wholly quotables, plagiarists have plenty of wily ways to pass others' work off as their own- and all of them are threats to original thinking. Melissa Huseman D'Annunzio imagines what would happen if a Department of Plagiarism Investigation were on the case. [3:48]

This provides guidelines for creating a paraphrase, sample paraphrases, introducing quotations, punctuating, formatting quotations, and what must be documented.

Through an adult-led field trip, students organized into investigation teams catalogue the incidence of plastic debris in different environments. They investigate these plastics according to their type, age, location and other characteristics that might indicate what potential they have for becoming part of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). Students collect qualitative and quantitative data that may be used to create a Google Earth layer as part of a separate activity that can be completed at a computer lab at school or as homework. The activity is designed as a step on the way to student's creation of their own GIS Google Earth layer. It is, however, possible for the field trip to be a useful learning experience unto itself that does not require this last GIS step.