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Santa Monica Festival!

           On Saturday May 19th, a few Team Mariners along with Marine Biology students joined Mr. kay at  Clover park for the Santa Monica Festival. Here, we went from booth to booth and got to see/do lots of interesing things. Some of us even got to make trees out of paper bags! One booth was dedicated to the 2012 Sustinable Santa Monica Art Contest, where they displayed the winners’ work and had art suplies available to use. Team Marine’s entry of our “Trash Pier” artwork got Special Recogition in the 9th-12th grade contest. We saw some great artwork, and just want to congradulate all the other winners; everyone did a great job! Special shout out to one of Samohi’s own, the 9th-12th grade runner-up: Sarah Shin. We had a great time at this event, thanks SM!

 
 
 

Here are some of the other winners of the 2012 Sustinable Santa Monica Art Contest

    

 

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Life Straws Recycling Event

 

On April 20, some members of Team Marine, along with Mr Kay’s Biology and Marine Biology students, held a recycling event. We collected recyclables including plastic bottles, glass bottles, and aluminum cans from around the school campus into trash bags. Students from Mr Kay’s classes brought recyclables from their homes also. Once all the trash bags were compiled into one area, they were then sorted into different groups: #1 plastics, #2 plastics, aluminum cans, and glass. After almost three and a half hours of sorting and tallying the recyclables, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that we collected 6000 #1 plastics, 237 #2 plastics, 3290 aluminum cans, and 634 glass bottles. The grand total from this event was 10,161! The money raised from this successful event amounted to $508.05 and with this we purchased 92 Lifestraws, water purifying straws, to donate to villages in Africa. This great achievement was due to the enthusiastic participation of Team Marine and Marine Bio students at Samohi. Thank you to all those who volunteered their time for a great cause and to Mr Parker, Ms Bartbell, and Ms Halley-Cox for their continuous collections!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Safe to surf?

While surfing last weekend, Mr. Kay noticed that he wasn’t alone…

 

 

Floating around him were various fragments of what were once single-use plastics. So he sat on his surfboard and collected as much trash that he could fit into his wetsuit. Kay collected all sorts of plastic ranging from plastic bags, wrappers, bottle caps, straws, to lots of unidentifiable fragments.  After school today, with the help of a few Marine Biology students, Team Marine laid each piece of plastic  flat and tried to cover as much concrete as possible to find the total surface area. While doing this, we made note of all the different recognizable brand names we found. They included: Doritos, Zip-loc, Reeses, Crunch, David sunflower seeds, Twix, BIC, Munchies, Kit Kat, Oreos, Gatorade, 7-select, Aquafina, Giradelli, Lays, 99¢ stores, Hersheys, Bimbo, Haribo, Corn nuts, Turbos, Life Styles, Air Heads, Cheetos, Pirate’s Booty, Penguinos, Fritos, Bakenetts, Sparklet, Orangina, Lucky’s, Wonka, FritoLay, Snickers, Nature Valley, Ice Breakers, and McDonald’s.

 

There were a total of 651 pieces of plastic that made up for 6.973m2 in surface area. Some of the plastic pieces had been colonized by algae/barnacles and there was one plastic bag that had a dead fish inside! The fish probably didn’t see the bag floating around the ocean, so it accidentally swam into it and when it couldn’t escape, it smothered. This can only mean one thing…

PLASTICS HAVE GOT TO GO!  

 

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Ocean Plastic Underestimated?

Remember when the ocean shores were covered with plastic confetti? Researches now believe the  clear seas are caused by wind driving large amounts of plastic pollution deeper into the sea. A new study has theorized that past estimates of marine plastic pollution has been greatly underestimated. “By factoring in the wind, which is fundamentally important to the physical behavior, you’re increasing the rigor of the science and doing something that has a major impact on the data,” , an oceanographer at the University of Washington. After a study including samples collected from multiple ranges of depths rom the surface of the ocean to as far as 100 feet down, Proskurowski and his team concluded that there is two and a half more times the plastic waste than recorded before.  In high winds, the amount of plastic trash recorded in the ocean could be underestimated by a factor of 27. The scope of the (plastic debris) problem is not just at the very surface but goes down to 20 meters or so, and that plastic is distributed throughout this layer,” Proskurowski said during an interview. Proskurowski and his team plan on publishing their research to encourage other scientists to conduct research of their own and spread the word. 

 

 

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Generation Earth’s Streets to the Sea Challenge

On Thursday, May 26th, 2011 our S2S team went down to Disney Studios in Burbank for the recognition event. Here, each team would be judged by hand-picked judges as well as our very own competitors.  All teams had to set up a booth displaying all we’ve done for the challenge and give 5 min presentations to the judges and other teams. We got to see lots of cool things while going around to the other schools’ booths! We learned about permeable cement, gardening , and we even got to take home some cool stamps made out of single-use bottle caps! Although we didn’t win, we still had a great experience and loved to see others our age with the same enthusiasm that we have towards protecting our environment. Thankyou so much Generation Earth, Disney studios, and ofcourse, our fellow eco-beasts! Congrats to Norwalk High School for winning 1st place among High School Teams and Walter Reed Middle School for winning 1st place among the middle school teams. Great job everyone, keep Eco-beastin’ it!

 

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The QuikSCience Recogition Event!

We just got back from the QuikSCience Recognition Event at the Quiksilver headquarters in Huntington Beach. First, we filled out a survey explaining our experiences in the QuikSCience Challenge, and then we enjoyed some tasty burgers out on the patio. After we ate, we got to look at the other teams’ portfolios and projects in a video compilation of the 2-min project summaries. They first announced the honorable mentions, 2nd place, and 1st place winners of the Middle School teams before announcing the High School winners. By now, the anticipation was killing us! Then, we heard it! “…And first place goes to: Ben Kay’s ‘Car Team’ of Santa Monica High School!” Car Team won a week at the USC Wrigley marine science center on Catalina Island, a check for $500, and a bunch of QuikScience goodies (QuikSCience t-shirts, reusable water bottles, surfboard USB drives, and QuikSCience pouches). After all the photos were taken, we settled back down for raffle prizes which included quiksilver/USC goodies and even a signed Tony Hawk skateboard! Once those were finished, each team picked up their QuikSCience goody bags and certificates.

Thanks again QuikSCience, and way to go Car Team!

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First Flush video posted on ACE website!

The Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) is dedicated to educating high school students on the science behind climate change to inspire them to take action against global warming. We LOVE ACE! They helped us when we participated in The Biggest Loser Energy Competition, Captains Patricio and Alexis attended Raise Your Voice trainings with them, and last year we competed in the Star Wars competition and won a solar charger. On April 5th, they blogged about our First Flush video on their “Hot and Bothered Blog”.

ACE rocks!
Here’s a link to the post: http://www.acespace.org/blog/2012/04/ban-the-bag/

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QuikSCience Recognition Event: Here we come!

 

In  about two hours, we will be driving to Huntington Beach to the Headquarters of  Quiksilver Inc. for the QuikSCience Challenge Recognition Event. Here, they will be announcing the 2012 challenge winners as well as the the 2012 Ocean Leadership Awards.

Wish us luck!

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The Streets to Sea challenge!

 Bag team and Car team joined forces to compete in Generationearth’s Streets to Sea challenge. The five of us competing are: Alexis Saez (bag team), Angelina Hwang (car team), Edie Cote (bag team), Ivan Morales (car team), and Matilda Mead (bag team). For this competition, Edie and Matilda conducted a watershed audit of our schools campus.

 

 

They found:

20 green- places water can get into ground: grass, bare dirt, and gardens

15 blue- sources of water: faucets, drinking fountains, sprinklers, and hoses

15 purple- places where water travels: gutters, drains, concrete, and asphalt

13 red X- things harmful to water: food trash, candy wrappers, motor oil, and pet waste

37 yellow circles- areas of concern with lots of trash

We then submitted info on our campaigns to teach the community on Single-use plastics(bag team) and alternative energies(car team) and how they relate to our campus watershed audits. Our primary messages of theses campaigns: to REFUSE single-use plastics and to RETHINK our ways of life.

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