Lesson Plan: Evaluating the Sustainability of Seafood

Written by: Alex Evans, BS, PharmD

Relevant classes: Environmental science, biology, ecology, marine science.

Duration: About one hour

Description: In this lab, students will learn about commercial fishing, including the problems associated

with overfishing and learn to evaluate seafood menus for sustainability. This is a good lab exercise after

a discussion on sustainability or commercial fishing.

Topics to discuss beforehand could include commercial fishing methods (long-lining, trawling,

seine nets, etc), the concept of by-catch and its effects on the oceans, technologies aimed at reducing

by-catch (i.e. TEDs), and aquaculture.

Materials:

One lesson plan worksheet for each student or group

2-3 seafood menus for each student or group. I have found from experience that the

best place to get a lot of these quickly are 1) the internet and 2) phone books with

menus. They can even be Chinese restaurants or others if they have significant amounts

of seafood on the menu.

Seafood sustainability guide. I like the one published by The Blue Ocean Institute

because it gives reasons why a certain seafood selection was categorized the way it was,

rather than just being a list. It is freely available to the public at:

http://blueocean.org/seafoods/

I personally like to show videos of commercial fishing. Examples include the following

links:

o “The Truth About FADs”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVbp7PijR6Y&list=PLC62F764D6BFE5AB9

o “Turtle Excluder Device (TED) fitted to a trawl net to stop turtles drowning”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y71cgxmyMO4

o “Catching Tuna Maldivian Style (example of sustainable commercial fishing)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP6rYThJWUg&list=ECC62F764D6BFE5AB9

Key Vocabulary:

Sustainability

Commercial fishing

By-catch

Fish Aggregating Device (FAD)

Turtle Excluder Device (TED)

Aquaculture

Objectives:

Understand the key vocabulary listed above

Learn to critically evaluate seafood menus to determine the menu choices’ effects on the oceans

Understand some underlying reasons behind why fish stocks decline over time

Gain insight into the ways in which consumers can drive social change

Page 1

Group members:_______________________________________________________________

Evaluating the

Sustainability of Seafood

Today we are going to evaluate the sustainability of the seafood that is served in local

restaurants. To do that, we are going to use the Blue Ocean Institute’s Guide to sustainable

seafood, which provides not only a rating of best and worst choices but also an explanation of

why it was put in that category. Each group will be given several menus to answer these

questions.

Name three different items on the menus that are the best or good choices and why: 1-

2-

3-

Name three different items on the menus that are either bad or the worst choices and why: 1-

2-

3-

Page 2

Name an item that was on the menu but was not descriptive enough to be able to determine whether or not it was a good choice.

What additional information was needed?

Why does that information matter in terms of sustainability?

Pick one of the restaurants and evaluate the seafood on their menu. Assign them a grade of A through F and give an explanation of your grade.