{"id":317767,"date":"2026-08-10T14:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T14:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/317767\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T14:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T14:46:07","slug":"nys-teachers-take-on-microplastics-with-snail-inspired-robot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/317767\/","title":{"rendered":"NYS teachers take on microplastics with snail-inspired robot"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a rainy morning in late July, Professor Sunny Jung<\/a> asked a group of New York state schoolteachers to consider the biology of the aquatic snail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With only one foot, the snail can move and feed, and they do it with an efficient undulating motion that can draw in particles from a distance 10 times greater than their body length.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are very efficient at pulling in water from the surface without sucking in the bulk fluid,\u201d said Jung, professor of biological and environmental engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, at a workshop for 25 New York state teachers offered by a team of researchers and staff at Cornell, New York Sea Grant<\/a> (NYSG), Princeton University and the University of Michigan. Now in its second year, the program gives teachers the tools to apply Cornell research in their classrooms, with lesson plans and hands-on materials they can share with their learners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New York State teachers constructed snail-inspired robots that can pull water in and filter microplastics out.<\/p>\n

The workshop\u2019s lessons center on the application of Jung\u2019s research to a problem of increasing concern: the proliferation of microplastics in waterways. Inspired by the undulating movement of the snail, Jung designed a simple robotic system<\/a> that can pull surface water in and filter microplastics out. With a team of collaborators, the group put the mechanism on a robot they named Mollusca and created both lab-scale prototypes and a build-your-own version for schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Jung presented the research, the wires, circuit boards, motors and many 3D-printed components of the Mollusca robots lay in disassembled piles on a back table. Before day\u2019s end, the teachers would build the robots, test them in a kiddie pool filled with small pieces of plastic called nurdles, and troubleshoot just like students, just like researchers, turning the conference room in Upson Hall into a makeshift robotics lab.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sea Grant trainings are the best I\u2019ve ever done,\u201d said Emily Colletta, head of the gifted and talented program at North Tonawanda Intermediate School in North Tonawanda, New York, who was attending the workshop for the second time. \u201cThey\u2019re super interactive, and it\u2019s always local, which makes it easier to integrate and for the kids to benefit. And they always provide us with hands-on materials we can take back to our classrooms. It\u2019s pretty special.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018A multiplicative effect\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

The research and the workshops come as concerns about microplastics are on the rise, with scientists projecting that the quantity of microplastics in the environment could double by 2040. The particles have been found in at least 1,300 species and throughout the human body, with evidence mounting of harmful health impacts. In April, the Environmental Protection Agency added microplastics to its list of contaminants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s (NOAA) Marine Debris Program funded development of the Mollusca concept in 2024, and the researchers set about integrating Jung\u2019s mechanism onto a robot. Two years later, three 12-by-12-inch prototypes have now logged 80 hours of swimming in a kiddie pool in the lab of Kirstin Petersen<\/a>, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering in the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering. She and her students are now investigating how a swarm of the robots could produce flows that increase microplastics collection.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, collaborator Michelle DiBenedetto at Princeton is examining how to optimize the robots under different wave dynamics, and Maha Haji at Michigan is working on designs of larger systems for deployment in the Great Lakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might not be the right way to get all the microplastics out of the oceans, but you can sample really well,\u201d Petersen said. \u201cThen you can learn more about where microplastics aggregate, which we currently don\u2019t really know. It\u2019s also given us a lot of hands-on knowledge that we need for field robotics on lakes and waters generally \u2013 lots of different projects have sprung from this one.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the research has progressed, NYSG staff have been translating it into a curriculum that can be adapted for New York state students of any age. The team first shared the lessons at a two-day workshop in July 2025 for 25 teachers and this summer reached 43 more at two all-day sessions, one on Cornell\u2019s campus and one in New York City. In addition to building robots to take home to their students, this year\u2019s cohort learned about microplastics in New York state\u2019s waterways and current collection technologies, as well as the latest Mollusca research developments. They also heard from last year\u2019s teachers on how to implement the project with students.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s super critical that we seed this interdisciplinary approach to complex problems at a really young level,\u201d Petersen said. \u201cAnd normally, we might reach 20 people at an outreach event that lasts an hour. But here, we\u2019re able to follow the teachers longer and help them seed it in their students \u2013 there\u2019s a multiplicative effect.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Colletta\u2019s sixth graders, the fact that they could see microplastics in the dust of their classroom, and on the shores of the Niagara River outside their town, made the lessons more real and engaging.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy students can go to this park by us and find nurdles any time from a nearby plastics factory, so it\u2019s very relevant for them,\u201d Colletta said. \u201cThe kids can see the connection to their own community and to themselves.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Colletta designed an entire three-month unit around the Great Lakes and Mollusca research; students learned about everything from the geography of the lakes to problems that affect them, such as climate change and microplastics. They learned about biomimicry and existing trash capture technology in waterways and brainstormed their own designs for removing the plastics. Then using kits and designs provided by NYSG and with in-person guidance from Jung, they built the same Mollusca robots as the teachers had.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey tested the robots and made observations and then were able to 3D-print their own modification to improve it,\u201d Colletta said. \u201cThey were super engaged.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Taryn Matteson used the materials with her Advanced Placement Biology students at Tapestry Charter High School in Buffalo. She got \u201ctotal buy-in,\u201d she said, with some students even using their plastic-capture designs to apply for college scholarships. Matteson and a colleague combined the project with materials from another NYSG workshop on LittaTraps, which collect trash in storm drains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe students were able to look at trash collection from the macro- and micro- scale, and then the art class even took the trash and made an art project out of it,\u201d Matteson said. \u201cThey really are thinking and building the skills that the new AP standards are looking for.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nate Drag, a New York Sea Grant Great Lakes literacy specialist, runs workshops for New York state teachers and is largely responsible for translating the Mollusca research into accessible classroom materials.<\/p>\n

Many of the teachers in July\u2019s workshop were repeat participants for NYSG and for Nate Drag<\/a>, a NYSG Great Lakes literacy specialist, who runs the workshops and is largely responsible for translating the highly technical research into classroom material teachers can use.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTeachers are fundamentally learners. They\u2019re excited, they\u2019re engaged and asking smart, insightful questions, because that\u2019s what they do with their students,\u201d Drag said. \u201cThe hope is that we can keep them connected over the school year, too, and have them working together and sharing resources.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Drag said the Mollusca project, his first foray into robotics, has added to his skill set and capacity, even as funding cuts have stalled original plans for a third year of workshops.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t end with this project,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s given me a whole new insight into the world of robotics and coding and using new and evolving technologies to solve these really tough problems. Now we can show teachers and students, who will be solving these problems into the future.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a rainy morning in late July, Professor Sunny Jung asked a group of New York state schoolteachers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-317767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}