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Why are Plastic Bottles Bad for Alligators?

March 28, 2009
An interactive session led by Dr. Lou Guillette 

Presentation Slides

  We live in a modern world of plastics. These plastics are used for everything from bike safety helmets to baby bottles. We see how these items help us in our everyday life and we believe they are safe and even make us safer. For example, we believe a plastic bottle is safer than a glass one, as we can get cut on a broken glass bottle. But...are all these plastics really good for us and the environment? Do we need to learn about the potential dangers of some plastics that are used to store our food? And why in the world would we think about baby alligators and plastics at the same time? Our program will explore the world of pollution and the many ways plastics can help us, but also potentially hurt the environment, including the health of alligators and us. We will learn which plastics might create problems and what people from around the world are doing to make a safer and cleaner environment for themselves and the animals that live around them.

March 2009 - Hands-On Exhibits

After each KTU interactive session the students are escorted by their parents to have lunch and then to the hands-on portion of the event. There the students enjoy the experience of interacting with various exhibits from the Virginia Tech community.

March 2009 - Exhibitors
1. Hahn Horticulture Garden at Virginia Tech
2. Virginia Tech Department of Geosciences
3. Virginia Tech Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Exercise
4. VT-STEM
5. Virginia Tech Physics Outreach Program
6. Montgomery County 4-H
7. Giles County 4-H
8. Virginia Tech Dairy Science
9. Forestry/Forestry Graduate Student Association
10. Food Animal Practitioners Club
11. Virginia Tech Department of Biochemistry
12. The Edward Via Virginia College Osteopathic Medicine
13. Virginia Tech School of Visual Arts
14. Virginia Tech Myers Lawson School of Construction in Building Construction Department
15. Virginia Tech Department of Entomology
16. Virginia Tech Department of Biological Sciences
17. Sigma Alpha
18. Poultry Science
19. Virginia Tech Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences
20. Andrill Antarctic Flexhibit
21. Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech