Explore Robots That Clean Oceans or Plant Trees

Our planet faces some big challenges — pollution in the oceans, forests that need more trees, and air that needs to be cleaner. Exciting news: engineers around the world are building robots and smart machines that can help!

Ocean-cleaning robots

• Some robots float on the surface of the ocean and collect plastic trash that would otherwise harm fish and sea animals.
• They use sensors to find trash, arms or nets to scoop it up, and then humans sort and recycle what has been collected.
• Example: A solar-powered ocean-cleaning boat glides across the water collecting plastic bottles, bags, and litter without needing fuel.

Tree-planting drones

• A drone is a flying machine controlled by a human or a smart program.
• Some drones carry seeds and shoot them into the ground across large areas of land that have been damaged by fires or logging.
• A drone can plant hundreds of seeds in one hour — far faster than a person could by hand.

Pollution-sensing robots

• Small smart machines can float in rivers or fly through the air measuring pollution levels.
• They send their data to human scientists who use it to decide how to help.

Technology alone is not enough

• Robots do not care about the planet — people do.
• These machines only work because people decided to build them, fund them, and use them for good.
• The most important ingredient in saving our planet is still human care.