A bottle in the sea

According to Radio-Canada article, a Jonathan would have sent this letter to a certain Mary in 1985 from Nova Scotia. The means of transport he chose had nothing specific about the destination, or the delivery time, because the message was not found until 28 years later, in Croatia.
Today's activities propose to retrace the possible route of this bottle and to imagine a “new literary” type story about this anecdotal fact.

Goals

At the end of the activities, the student will be able to:
- Use the Internet to find geographic information;
- Use a current event as a backdrop for writing a short story;
- Publish their text on their blog or electronic portfolio;
- Comment constructively on a blog post;
- Find other recent news featuring a bottle in the sea;
- Think about the issue of pollution caused by a bottle in the sea.
 

ACTIVITY 1: From the Canadian coasts to those of Croatia

Suggest that students use a map like this to plot the likely course of the bottle.

Click on the image to enlarge.
Invite them to document their hypotheses using, among other things, geographical maps, but also maps illustrating the main ocean currents. They will easily find it on the Internet.
They will have to locate the starting point and the end point and indicate some important landmarks in their work. It's up to them to select the most relevant!
 

ACTIVITY 2: Imagine the story

Suggest that your students use their imaginations and try to invent the lives of Jonathan and Mary. Why did Jonathan use such a medium to communicate his message to Mary? There are surely many hypotheses!
To add spice, assign at random, or on a voluntary basis, the following atmospheres that will tint the story of a literary novel type (or other, depending on your program): romance, coded message, deception, paranormal, etc.
If students have a blog or e-portfolio, invite them to post there. Everyone must then go and write a comment of appreciation on the news of a classmate.
 

For further

Bottles to the sea : Challenge students, in teams, to find another example of a bottle-sent message that has made headlines in recent years. They should inform themselves and talk about it for 1 or 2 minutes with the rest of the class.
Pollution? : a bottle in the sea containing a message, is it less serious as a polluting factor than a bottle without a message? What do your students think? Weigh the pros and cons together.