If you haven’t ever heard of this really fantastic story of the “friendly floaties” you need to check it out. Oceanographers have been tracking the bathtub toys for over fifteen years, using it to predict then prove many theories about currents. Wikipedia sums it up succinctly, “Seattle oceanographers Curtis Ebbesmeyer and James Ingraham, who were working on an ocean surface current model, began to track their progress. The mass release of 29,000 objects into the ocean at one time offered significant advantages over the standard method of releasing 500–1000 drift bottles. The recovery rate of objects from the Pacific Ocean is typically around 2%, so rather than the 10 to 20 recoveries typically seen with a drift bottle release, the two scientists expected numbers closer to 600. ” I found two kid’s books about the floating ducks (why not the turtles or the beaver?) One is written from a plastic ducks point of view called DUCKY by Eve Bunting. Another is written by an author I love called 10 LITTLE RUBBER DUCKS by Eric Carle, who also wrote The Very Hungry Caterpillar.