Of Toys and Tennis Shoes

Would you believe that tennis shoes, rubber duckies, and doll heads have all helped in the tracking of ocean currents? All of these things have fallen into the ocean as the result of spills from cargo ships during storms at sea.

Eighty thousand tennis shoes were washed overboard near the Alaskan Peninsula in 1990. Beachcombers from Alaska to northern California collected hundreds of them. Over the next few years, shoes washed up in Hawaii, the Philippines, and Japan.

Yellow duckies and green frogs ended up on beaches from Alaska to Oregon from a spill of plastic bathtub toys in the north Pacific Ocean in 1992.

What does this have to do with science? Some oceanographers have used the floating toys to plot ocean surface currents. Studies have shown that about 1 percent of a spilled cargo eventually washes ashore. The oceanographers have kept records of where the toys ended up over time to record the paths of currents.

The toys also provide information about where floating debris will go after spills. Thus, they may help scientists contain other - possibly dangerous - spills in the future.