Provided by: Tumble Media|Published on: June 25, 2026
Podcasts
345
Synopsis
This eight-part audio course casts students as special agents on Nurdle Patrol, a mission to find and track nurdles—small plastic pellets that serve as the building blocks for plastic products.
Students learn what nurdles are and how they are made, train to identify them by size, color, shape, and texture, conduct a field survey, report their data to a global database, and consider how to prevent plastic pollution.
A GPS-enabled device or access to Google or Apple Maps
A timer
Gloves
Collection containers, varied sizes
Spoons (optional game)
Bag of rice (optional game)
Bottles (optional game)
Classroom Implementation:
This course is a great fit for a hands-on Earth Week unit but can also be spread out over multiple weeks; see the facilitator guide for tips about pacing.
Use a Nurdle Patrol-related call-and-response attention signal, such as "Nurdle Patrol?" "Mission ready!"
Pre-select key moments in the audios to pause and have students turn-and-talk or discuss guiding questions as a group.
Differentiation:
For multilingual learners who would benefit from hearing the audio in Spanish, check out the Spanish version of this course.
There is no transcribed version of the audio content, but teachers may auto-generate transcripts by using online tools and linking them to the Spotify course playlist.
Climate Change Connection:
This course connects to climate change through the lifecycle of plastic, which is derived from fossil fuels and drives global warming.
Scientist Notes
Teaching Tips
Standards
Resource Type and Format
Related Teaching Resources
All resources can be used for your educational purposes with proper attribution to the content provider.
